Brute Force: Desperation
by Invaderk
Summary: Oneshot. TophxSokka. Toph and Sokka struggle to survive against Azula and a strict interrogator with a personal vendetta against the Water Tribe. Reconstructed as of October 2011.
1. Part I: Interrogation

**UPDATE: 11 OCTOBER 2011:**

**A/n:** I first wrote and posted this story in January 2008 (almost four years ago!), and it has since been the story that I come back to the most. It is undeniably my most controversial piece, and has received feedback all over the spectrum. The most common issues, however, are ones that I could identify with - mostly in the details, but also in the ending. After years of wanting to do something about this, I finally went back and fixed the whole thing as best as I could without re-writing it. I broke the sections into the chapters they (and your poor eyes) deserve. I edited the blatant errors and changed plot points. And though I will never be completely happy with this piece (or any of my pieces, to be honest), I can at least look at this and go, "Okay, I've done the best I can." And really, I'm ready to let it go.

So if you've read this before, welcome back! Feel free to ignore this or give it a second go. To the new readers, welcome! This fandom may be dead, but it is certainly not forgotten.

**Something to consider:** I originally wrote this in the SEVEN MONTH GAP between the invasion and "The Western Air Temple", so while the story no longer fits in with the series canon, it fit right in with what was canon at the time.

I could NOT have done this without massive amounts of help (that includes your commentary, reviewer!). Over the years I've been lucky to know so many amazing writers, some of which formed the squadron of betas who went over this story line by line, nitpicking and suggesting areas of improvement. To Rhed, Izzy, Chaka, and Lupe, you are the best help I could ask for. Thank you so much.

**Disclaimer:** I still own nothing!

**WARNINGS:** This story contains, on varying levels ranging from minor to explicit, torture, self-harm, isolation, imprisonment, and flat-out violence. If you have triggers for any of these things, best skip ahead to the next story.

Happy Reading, and as always... THANK YOU!

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**Brute Force: Desperation**

_Part I: Interrogation_

Sokka's grip on her arm would later leave a hand-shaped bruise. Toph assumed that, like herself, he had rendered his face expressionless. Later on—if they were fortunate enough to _have_ a 'later on'—she might allow herself to feel something like fear, but not here. Not in front of these Fire Nation soldiers, whose unrecognizable voices didn't sound evil save for their disgust. The smell of soot hung low in the warm indoor air, a product of the torches lined along the wall. If she could get a hold on even one of them, she could knock their captors into next week and walk away.

A wisp of air brushed her ear when Sokka whispered, "Don't tell them anything, Toph."

"I _won't_," she said, almost annoyed that he had reminded her. Even defenseless as she was, with her wrists bound behind her back and wooden sandals tied expertly to her feet, she didn't need prompting.

The man who appeared to be charge—a general with a harsh voice and, presumably, harsh features, but Toph couldn't be sure—gave a growling laugh and moved forward. Sokka's grip on her arm tightened, and briefly she wondered if he was _trying_ to hurt her, but it loosened a moment later as the pair was forced roughly apart.

From what Toph could hear, Sokka made a mad lunge towards her, only to be stopped in mid-air and knocked backwards by the general's massive hands. His shout sounded more like a shriek as he slid across the floor on his backside. Toph couldn't help but wince.

The general grabbed Toph roughly by her upper arm and jerked her to one side like a rag doll. In the commotion that followed Sokka's outburst, she made a wild, sideways grab for her captor's armor with both hands. Toph's fingers brushed against a Fire Nation insignia, but not one that she could distort with a well-aimed punch. Her blind eyes widened with the realization that these soldiers wore armor carved not from metal, but from wood, smooth and clasped with fabric ties. They had effectively shut down the fight before it could begin.

Even the greatest Earthbender in the world, when handled properly, was just a little girl.

The amount of forethought to the attack scared her. How could they have known that Toph and Sokka would be wandering alone through the woods at the exact time that they were? This prison surely couldn't have been made just for them; the entrance to this place—though what "this place" meant, she didn't know—had been lined with planks of wood, but there must be metal somewhere close by.

"Still rebellious even without your weapons, I see," the general spat, off to her side. "We'll see how defiant you are after a day or two in our prison." He turned again and Toph was half-dragged across the floor, her arm twisted across her back. "Why are you still sitting there, boy? Get up!"

A shuffling ensued, during which Toph assumed Sokka scrambled clumsily to his feet. With almost no effort at all, the soldier released Toph's arm and shoved her across the room, where she collided with Sokka and almost sent them both toppling to the floor again.

"Let's just make this easy on everyone." The sound of weighty footsteps followed. Sokka found Toph's hand and gripped it as a new set of hands closed on her shoulders. Toph couldn't be sure as to whom Sokka was trying to comfort. "Who would like to speak first? Where is the Avatar?"

Truth be told, neither of them knew exactly where Aang was. The group had split into two just the previous day. Katara and Aang, along with Zuko, The Duke, Teo, and Haru, had dropped Toph and Sokka off in the town where Piandao resided so that Sokka could inquire as to the purpose of the White Lotus tile. Toph had elected to accompany him so that Aang could stay behind to continue his Firebending, and Katara, with her incredible distrust of Zuko, had refused to even discuss leaving Aang. Somebody must have seen the pair in town—probably while Sokka was taking his sweet time at the beef jerky stand. Toph refused to believe that they could have been so prepared for her without prior notice.

When neither Toph nor Sokka responded, the general addressed his men in that same stern tone: "Remember the special cell for the girl, and make sure his weapons are locked in the vaults." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, a gesture she imagined rather than pictured as Sokka's grip on her hand tightened. "Get them out of here."

She heard the sound of more soldiers stepping forward. Abandoning all pretenses, Sokka grabbed Toph by the hem of her tunic and drew his face close to hers. His voice shook, even more so in his urgent whisper.

"I'll get us out of here soon," he assured her, though she could hear no certainty in his words. Subconsciously, she quivered in his grip—the first visible sign that she was just as afraid as he. "You just promise me that you won't stop believing it."

She shook her head. "Sokka, don't be—"

"Toph!"

Two more pairs of hands grasped her upper arms in an attempt to pry her from Sokka's steadfast hold. Soundlessly, Toph panicked. Leaving his side meant that she, for the first time, might actually be the blind and helpless girl that she had spent her entire life forcing away. She yanked at her restraints, making to grab his shirt and grasping little more than air.

"Please, Toph…" Sokka sounded strangled, his vain attempts to cling to her shoulders failing as his escorts persisted. She could feel his fingers gripping the fabric of her tunic, feel the fabric straining under his hold.

Toph gave a small, sharp yelp when, with a lurch, the hands yanked her backward, lifted her clear off her feet, and began to carry her across the room. She yelled out in hope that Sokka could still hear her as he was pulled in the opposite direction.

"I promise!" And then, under her breath, "Goodbye, Sokka."

xXx

For reasons she could not identify, it never ceased to surprise Toph that her cell was stronger than she, made of thick wood that she could neither Bend nor break. And she'd tried, too, though in her heart she knew that her only _real_ chance of survival was if Aang and Katara were to make some sort of miracle rescue, and the two of them wouldn't even learn of their absence for several days. That, and this prison hold was, as far as she'd deduced, far underground and virtually undetectable. Never had she been so immersed in her element, and yet so far from it. Feet away. Maybe inches, if she stuck her hands through the bars.

Toph put her hands over her face and struggled for a moment against her own voice, her own doubt. The urge to admit defeat welled up in her chest and throat, but she forced it down with a hard swallow.

_You promised._

"I know, I know," she whispered breathlessly, agitated. For the time being, she would have to wait for Sokka to come up with a plan, and in the meantime try to think of one herself. She'd been in trouble before, and had gotten out on sheer brilliance and her rapier wit. If she stayed as steadfastly confident as she had always been, there could be no doubting their escape.

Toph shuffled over to the door of the cell and sat very still, listening. Her senses were pulling double time, so sharp that she could hear her guard's soft, even breath on the other side.

"Hello?" she shouted. There had to be other prisoners in this place, Fire Nation or otherwise.

"Shut up," said the guard.

Maybe someone had heard her raucous arrival and would try to contact her if she couldn't get to them first. She waited, desperate for even the smallest sound. When that proved unhelpful, Toph spent a few minutes trying to untie the thick ropes that held the sandals to her feet. Failing that, she felt her way over to the far corner of the cell, flopped down on the floor, and tucked her legs against her chest.

xXx

Toph, at the moment, was not the only blind one in the Hold. Wrists tied as before, Sokka was lead through a series of labyrinthine hallways by a pair of unspeaking soldiers. The twists and turns, locked doors, and abrupt changes in direction were enough, he thought, to render the cloth bag over his head superfluous. Occasionally voices, muffled by the bag and by their owners, would reach his ears as guards and (most likely) important figures passed one another. The moisture of his own breath was stifling, almost suffocating, and when the bag was finally removed from his head Sokka took a deep breath of clean air before the thought to look around even crossed his mind.

However, before he had a chance to get a proper look at the room he was in, his escort pulled his arms above his head—Sokka winced as his arm was twisted briefly the wrong way—pushed him forcibly into a cold metal chair from behind, then dropped his wrists behind the steel backing. The captured warrior's hand bumped against a tiny wedge of welding on the chair back, which likely had supported the chair's tall frame before being wrenched off. But Sokka was too concerned with his surroundings to pay it much heed. Footsteps bounced off of the thick metal walls, first only the original pairs and then four as two more people entered the room. Finally, after a brief silence during which Sokka assumed the people communicated with nods and gestures —though he craned his neck backwards, eyebrow cocked, he still could not see behind him—the first pair of footsteps faded down the hallway.

"Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise? I must admit that I never thought I would say it, but it's a pleasure to see you, Sokka."

He had almost expected her in the beginning. This huge place, the seamless fashion in which their capture had occurred, had reeked of her from the start. Sokka had hoped against hope that her absence had meant she wasn't behind this. Evidently he was wrong. Of all the things Sokka had dreaded, the voice that reached his ears next was the very worst; it sent a terrible chill down his spine, prickled his skin like needles and stifled the remainder of his precious, trace optimism.

One of the pairs of footsteps strode around the chair, and into his line of sight stepped an armor-clad Azula. Sokka poured every ounce of his willpower into making a mask of his face, desperate not to give her any satisfaction. He had no idea that Chief Hakoda's son, proud warrior of the Southern Water Tribe and comrade of the Avatar, could still feel a fear this intense. And although his face portrayed none of this terror, his eyes screamed it loudly enough for the entire Fire Nation to hear. A smirk flitted across the princess's lips, cruel and predatory.

Before she had a chance to say anything more, Sokka demanded, "What are you doing here?"

Azula enjoyed a chuckle at his expense.

"I don't think you're in the position to be asking questions," she said airily, with a nonchalant wave of her hand. "If I were you, I'd be asking what I have to do to leave this place. Well let me tell you…" She shifted on her slick armored heels to face him straight on. "If you answer my questions precisely and truthfully, you and your friend walk free."

This statement had to be a lie; Azula wasn't dumb enough to release him and Toph from so much as their ropes, much less hand them weapons and usher them to the front door. "And if I don't?"

"Trust me, you will."

She lowered her face close enough so that Sokka could see every little detail of her yellow eyes.

"You may think you're strong and brave and that you won't succumb to my request, but I know better. If there is any trouble whatsoever, any refusal to cooperate, the consequences will be unbearable—for you, at least." Azula paused, as if waiting for a response, and when she received none and leaned in closer still, her hands finding the arm rests on either side of the chair and gripping them in her talon-like fingers. At another time, when Sokka had his wits fully about him, he would happily show Azula his defiance and kiss her full on the mouth—no matter how disgusting it was, no matter how badly she hurt him afterward. It would be worth it to watch her splutter in outrage. But right now, the fear paralyzed him.

"Where is the headquarters of the Order of the White Lotus?" she asked.

In spite of his efforts to remain rocklike, Sokka's eyebrows shot upward. He had expected to hear questions of Aang and Katara, of her treacherous brother. But to his immense astonishment, he had no idea what his interrogator was talking about.

"I… I don't know," he replied in all honesty, attempts at neutrality failing under surprise's pressure.

Instead of replying, Azula reached up with one hand and placed her fingers on the side of his neck. They should have been the cold hands of a villain, Sokka thought, but they weren't. Her fingers felt smooth and warm. Her nails dug lightly into his skin.

She seemed to observe him for a moment. Sokka didn't dare tear his eyes from her, lest he miss something.

"Your pulse says otherwise," Azula finally declared, and then Sokka jumped as if an electric shock had coursed through him. She stepped backwards and motioned with a nod of her head to someone over his shoulder. "Getsuei, if you would."

Sokka jumped for a second time, this time out of his own nerves. His hand bumped against the thin, loose strip of metal again, leaving a small scratch in its wake. The intensity and relative pain of his situation had caused him to forget the second pair of footsteps from before.

"Getsuei is my personal apprentice to the art of interrogation," stated Azula. She clasped her hands behind her back in a professional matter, only her head inclining to the second woman as she made her way around Sokka's chair. "If you refuse to give us the necessary answers, she will use you as practice for her work. And though we have yet to venture into the more… hands-on… methods until now, I must say that she shows great potential."

Sokka's narrowed eyes darted towards Getsuei, whose dark hair and stout appearance would have made her look distinctly Earth Kingdom were it not for her Fire Nation armor. Judging by their metal plate, he deduced that they had not yet been to see Toph. In one steady hand she carried a whip-like device, and in the other was the cloth bag that he had been wearing on his head. Her harsh, tired features held no emotion as she looked him up and down without tilting her head.

Azula continued, unperturbed by her apprentice's silence. "As for our little meeting today, Getsuei received your possessions, and in them she found this—"

Azula reached into her pocket and drew forth a little black bag, which contained the White Lotus Tile about which Sokka and Toph had been traveling to investigate when they had been captured. Sokka felt himself shift in involuntary astonishment. As adamantly as he steeled himself against surprise, it seemed that every moment brought him through a new turn, each one leaving him more vulnerable. The accompanying gestures were just an inevitable side effect.

"I see…" The princess trailed off deliberately, as if to leave Sokka more time to contemplate his options. "Of course, it's possible that you merely favor the White Lotus for pai sho, and that you know nothing of the Order. In that case, we'll have to pry the information out of your friend—"

"Wait!"

The singular word had escaped from his mouth before he had a chance to consider it. Hating himself for having shown his fear, he nevertheless continued, "Look, I don't know what this Order thing is—I've never even heard of it!"

"From whom did you receive the tile?"

Sokka opened his mouth to respond, hesitated, closed it again. His silence was a ringing one, echoing through his own ears—and, he was sure, the ears of his interrogators—like the loudest siren. "I found it."

When Getsuei stepped forward towards Sokka, Azula flung out her arm to stop her. The apprentice walked into her arm and stopped abruptly, never speaking.

"I don't think you realize what you're getting yourself into," said Azula.

"No, actually, I understand it just fine," Sokka derided, and _boy_ did it feel good to say something in his usual tone, as opposed to this frightened voice he kept hearing himself use. "I know exactly what you're trying to do, and it's not going to work, so why don't you just untie me so we can—"

The next thing he knew, a strangled yell had erupted from his throat, his arms automatically struggling (and failing) to free themselves from the bonds that held him down. That scrap of metal dug into his hand yet again, sending a warm trickle down his palm. A pain like none he had ever experienced erupted in his torso, a sensation that mimicked the claws of nine polar leopards digging into his chest. Sokka's brain was momentarily overcome with the intensity of it before he finally, gasping, opened his streaming eyes and faced his captors. Breaths came unevenly, his chest heaving.

Neither Azula nor Getsuei was perturbed by his brief reaction to Getsuei's whip—quite the contrary, it seemed; Azula's eyebrows rose only the tiniest bit, and she scoffed at the Water Tribe warrior's attempts to wipe his wet face on his shoulder.

"That was only a taste of what can be delivered to you, should you remain silent. You know," the prodigy noted with a fleeting smirk, casting her eyes skyward as if reflecting on a pleasant conversation, "after your failure of an invasion, a large group of men surrendered—Water Tribe, mostly."

Again, Azula saw in his eyes what his expression would not show. It pleased her.

"It's a shame, really, that all that strength had to go to waste; the Fire Nation doesn't take prisoners."

A strangled, pained yell escaped from Sokka's throat as he failed to leap to his feet and break through his restraints. "That's a lie! You—you're a liar!"

Yellow eyes flashed dangerously. "Maybe. And maybe not. You'll never know unless you talk."

Sokka's eyes narrowed in defiance. "I don't know what you're talking about. And if I did, I would never tell you."

Azula shrugged and responded with a simple, "Your loss." She nodded once to Getsuei.

"Commence."

Getsuei stepped forward. Sokka held his breath.

xXx

The sole torch outside his cell provided Sokka with just enough light to inspect his new injuries. One of the armed guards had escorted him—and by escorted he meant half-dragged a Sokka who had barely enough strength to even stand—to this cell and thrown him carelessly in before slamming the metal door shut. Sokka, even in his semi-conscious state, had looked eagerly around for a sign of a wooden cell or an exit. As far as he could tell, there was no escaping from this place without a key and a map, and he had neither of the two.

It was horrible to imagine that places like this might exist all over the world, just below their treading feet. It was not hewn roughly into the earth but constructed with measurable precision. The four walls of his cell were of the exact same dimensions as the ceiling and floor, each line meeting another in a perfect and sharp angle. Being hurdled through the door was a bit like being thrown into an oversized box—a box whose walls gleamed from the hallway torchlight. Sokka was momentarily dizzied by the sight of it, and slumped into the corner where two walls met only after thoroughly inspecting the cell for sharp items. He wouldn't want to brush up against anything that could scratch him in his sleep, though it might be useful to have something like that for an escape…

"Ouch. _Ow_."

He grazed his fingertips along one of the swollen welts that had risen up on his chest. Some were bloodied from the whip, all were inflamed. A sharp hiss passed through his clenched teeth and he drew back his hand almost instantly, wiping the traces of blood onto the side of his pants.

This was insane. Undoubtedly the nastiest thing that had ever happened to him. Yes, it could have been worse, but he couldn't fathom how he could experience a more intense pain than what he had felt less than an hour before. Now that he was here, in this cell containing nothing but a gleaming metal toilet, Sokka took a moment to open his mind and contemplate the circumstances. He had met people in the past who would have given up in his situation, but he wasn't ready to abandon hope. Not yet. Being a man of science, Sokka reasoned that there _had_ to be a way out, a way in which he could manipulate his captors to escape the cell, find Toph, and somehow miraculously get the two of them out of there without being discovered.

Sokka opened his mouth to mutter to himself some sort of sarcastic comment, but instead he found that, for once, he had nothing to say. Tons of thoughts bombarded his brain, yes—he had actually developed a headache, though whether it was from his recent torture, his lack of food, or from the thoughts, he didn't know—but all the sarcasm seemed to have been drained out of him with his energy.

"That's a first," he breathed, closing his eyes and leaning back against the cold stone of the cell.

The immediacy of his situation had forced the reason for his imprisonment out of his head, but it returned now in the quiet dark. No doubt Piandao had meant something by giving him the tile, but Sokka hadn't the slightest idea what, much less its connection to the Order of the White Lotus, whatever that was. Surely Azula knew more than him about it. It must be important—he felt a momentary lift of pride at having been included in this secret, however slightly, but it faded with the realization that this secret could very well kill him.

An uncomfortable chill crept up his back as Azula's last words before her departure echoed through his racing mind. She, untroubled by his half-consciousness, had watched as he was tossed into the cell, and had then turned to the guard with one comment:

"_If he falls ill, it's your job to clean up the mess."_

Sokka gave a surly grunt and reached out with one hand toward where his rumpled and sweaty tunic lay on the ground in a heap. The cloth in his fingertips reminded him vaguely of Toph, his attempts to cling to her in their last moments together. Then he thought of his sister, and all the times she'd sewed this very tunic. He never missed her as much as in these first moments of silent solitude, where he would give anything for her mediocre cooking and healing hands. Pushing down the sigh that welled up in his chest, Sokka wiped his face with the tunic and then draped it over his bare torso. That little bubble of despair in his heart would have to be kept under control if he planned on making it out of here alive. Anything less might result in desperation, and he had learned that desperate people often did stupid things.

Besides, he thought with the faintest trace of a smirk, who would he be if he hadn't already begun mapping out a plan? He would have to work out some kinks along the way, of course, but it was a start, and that start was what was keeping him from losing it altogether.

Sokka's stomach growled obstinately, surprising him out of his thought. When had he last eaten? The day before, or…?

'_Never mind that,' _he chastised himself. He began to busy himself by removing the protective cloth strips from around his wrists and placing them on the ground beside him. Frowning, he noted that one of them had been torn and stained from that little scrap of metal on his chair. _'You've gone without food before. They need to feed you eventually, if they want to keep you alive long enough to get information.'_

For some reason, the prospect of living only as a tool for information did not appeal much to the warrior. Nevertheless, he tore his eyes away from the tiny window of his cell door—it was the third time he had caught himself watching that window, as if someone would actually bring him food or offer conversation. _What a laugh_. Sokka and lowered himself into a laying position, frontside up as to keep the floor from touching his wounds.

"I hope you're doing better than I am, Toph, wherever you are," he muttered, and closed his heavy eyes.

xXx

Days began to pass, each one becoming longer until they finally blurred together into one nightmare. There was no way to differentiate between day and night in the hold, no way for Toph to keep track of time save for her instincts. She never could see the sun, but there had never been a time where she missed its warmth more so than the time she spent locked in her cell with nothing better to do than sleep, pick her toes, and harass her guard.

"Mealtime, scum."

Toph didn't bother raising her head from where it lay in her crossed arms. Her body was held in a somewhat odd position on the ground, with her legs propped up against the wall and the rest of her body sprawled across the wooden floor. Several sounds reached her ears, familiar sounds that she had heard more times than she cared to count. Mealtime had a familiar process, a set of steps that her gruff guard took painstakingly the same each day: a straw mat containing some cruddy food and a wooden cup of water slid through the flap of the door, and after she finished eating—sometimes it took minutes, if she was in the mood, and other times it took hours—the mat and bowl were taken away again.

Today, though, Toph's stomach gave a forlorn growl and she reached blindly outwards to where she knew the mat was, her fingers falling just short of the proper distance to reach the food. She frowned and, with a slight grunt of effort, pulled herself away from the wall with her arms and dragged herself across the cell. Splinters from the wood were nothing, now. In fact, and she looked upon the idea with a sort of dark amusement, pulling splinters from her hands and feet—or, at least, the part of her feet that wasn't covered with those slabs of wood—was a good way to pass the time, though when she couldn't get them out they throbbed for hours on end until she finally managed to extract them.

The bread in her mouth was dry and bland, one of the only things she'd eaten since being locked away. But it wasn't the food or even her cold isolation that bothered her the most. What pushed her to her limits—it had begun to haunt her in her troubled sleep, even—was the fact that she had not heard a single word about Sokka since they'd arrived. More than once, she'd pestered her guard about him, asking about his location and well being in the most roundabout and clever ways, until the guard had threatened to beat her into submission. Then she stopped for the day, until the need to know overcame her once again. The concern was always there; it never faded, but rather seemed to grow sharper in her stomach and chest until she physically cried out with the pain of it.

And still, Toph had not cried a single time. She _couldn't_, because crying would mean that she had given up the last of her hope, because crying was surrendering, and Toph wouldn't allow herself to surrender.

Ravenous, she took a bite from the bread and followed it with a tiny sip of water. What was Sokka doing now? Working on some sort of elaborate escape plan, for certain. She wished she could help him more, but pounding her fists on the wall had proved unhelpful; there was not an inch of earth to be had within her reach. But no matter what, she could always count on Sokka to at least _try_ to fix things. A brief image passed through her mind of Sokka bursting through his cell door in some sort of great escape, wielding machete and space sword.

Chuckling, Toph rolled over onto her back, unseeing eyes cast skyward and mind drifting in aimless boredom, and took another bite of her meal. With thoughts of freedom on the mind, even stale bread tasted wonderful.

xXx

**TBC**


	2. Part II: Desperation

A/n: Please see Chapter 1 notes for explanation, disclaimer, warnings, and credits.

Thanks for reading!

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_Part II: Desperation_

During the time that followed that first day in the Fire Nation hold, Sokka spent every moment working on his plan. It was more than a little rough, but the slight chance of success overrode his hesitation. Having a positive thought to latch on to was in itself a small victory, like a tiny crack in his cell that he could wedge apart if only he had the right tools.

Besides, he had all the time he needed, as long as he didn't get himself killed.

For that reason, he had taken to remaining completely silent during his interrogations. Getsuei was cruel, and Sokka had learned that her words were often less painful than her whip, which she used less often than other methods of interrogation. She favored a particular type of torture; a slow process that preyed more on his mind than his body. If Azula stopped by, however—and sometimes she did, but rarely (_Thank Yue_)—things were different. It was on a "normal", Azula-less day that Sokka took the first of many steps in his plan to escape.

"If you divulge the needed information, you will be released," explained Getsuei in her normal scathing tone. "Otherwise, you will stay here for the remainder of the day and hope that you don't lose your mind." Her grip on his upper arm tightened, nails digging into his skin, and he saw lights dance briefly before his eyes. "Any questions, water rat?"

Sokka paused a moment, contemplating, before he finally responded, "Can I use the bathroom first?"

His response had evidently not been expected, for Getsuei's eyebrows shot up in surprise, giving her what Sokka thought to be a rather frightening appearance. In truth, he had been expecting some harsh words and maybe a cuff to the face, so when she tilted her head in consent, his jaw nearly fell to the floor.

"Only because I don't want to have to clean up after you," she snapped. Her hand tugged him sideways, causing him to nearly topple over in the process, and began to lead him across the room.

Now Sokka's eyebrows arched. He was marched across the room, she guiding and he half-tripping behind, to the door adjacent to the one he was brought through each morning. Getsuei reached out with one thick-fingered hand and pried open the heavy metal door, then tossed him carelessly inside.

"Don't do anything stupid," she snapped, and closed the door.

Sokka stared for a few moments at the door that had just been slammed in his face.

"But wait, how do I…?" He shifted his wrists behind his back for a moment, as if contemplating how Getsuei supposed he was going to use the bathroom like this, but it didn't matter. "Oh never mind." He didn't need to go anyway; he'd merely been looking to scavenge some tools for his escape.

First things were first. Although it pained him slightly to do so, he twisted his wrists in the bonds and stepped through his arms so that his hands were in front of him. What he was looking for, he wasn't so sure. Just something—anything, really—that could help move along his work in progress. Preferably something sharp. After taking a quick look around the dingy, gray bathroom, he began to make his way towards the concrete sink. The sound of pinging drops of water reminded Sokka vaguely about what he would face in mere minutes, but he pushed the thought forcefully from his mind and set it on the task at hand.

This bathroom was clearly seldom used and never cleaned. Dirty yellowed lamps flickered over Sokka's head as he padded barefoot across the damp tiles. A thick coating of dust had settled over the glass of the mirror. Sokka reached up his tied hands and wiped it away with one wave of his arm. The effect was almost maddening.

_Who is that?_

If Katara could have seen him, he knew that she would have cried. Sokka might have cried too if he had the time to do so. Peering back at him was a pair of strikingly blue eyes, eyes no longer filled with sarcasm and wit but rather with a dark thoughtfulness. His face, even after only two weeks in the hold, had lost some of its rich color, becoming thinner and gaunt. Above one furrowed eyebrow was a welt, much like the longer ones on his bare torso, that would have rendered him blind had he not moved his head at the perfect second.

His reflection reminded him that he was not well. Sokka hadn't imagined the splitting hunger pains and almost frantic cravings for water. Though he was perpetually exhausted (he imagined he was kept this way as a means of snuffing any escape attempts) cold chills and a scratchy throat kept him awake well into his few hours of sleep. He leaned closer to his mirror image and examined the dark circles that had become permanent as of late. There could be no doubt that he was falling ill, or that he would if he had not already done so. More, he was sure this illness could very easily destroy him in a way that neither Getsuei nor Azula had been able to accomplish.

In the first days of his imprisonment, Sokka had wondered what the tile could mean, what the Order did that was so vital to Azula's scheme. But as he gazed at his emaciated image drawn across the pane, he wondered for the first time if the Order was worth his silence. If Piandao could know what had happened here as a result of his "gift", would he praise Sokka for his steadfastness or scold him for being so noble? And anyway, putting stake in the importance of the trinket had given him hope where his plan failed to do so. Getsuei discovering his tile had been a side-effect of his capture, not its cause, and Azula would never be so ignorant as to release two of the Avatar's most valuable allies. Telling Azula would make little difference. He was either breaking out of this prison or dying within its walls.

More so to rid the image of himself from his mind than anything else, Sokka tore his gaze from his reflection and glanced at the metal door.

He could break the glass, attack Getsuei and the guards, and escape right now, without a plan…? One more look at his doubtful reflection told him that it would be impossible. He didn't even know where Toph was being held, much less how to find the exit once he found her. As tempting as the opportunity was, he would have to wait. He didn't need to risk their heads on a whim when he had plenty of time to learn more. And besides, he mused, running his fingers along the edge of the mirror and giving it a small tug, the glass was probably shatterproof—

_Wait a second._

With a tiny creak, the ancient mirror released itself on one hinge and swung open, hurling dust at a gaping Sokka, who stared, open-mouthed at his luck, at the contents of the inner shelf.

Sitting on the bottom row was a thin metal rod, only about half as long as his forearm. It resembled a dull-tipped screwdriver without the handle, but appeared to have no functional purpose. Hesitantly, Sokka reached upwards and plucked the rod from the shelf. Simple though it was, the object reminded him of a boomerang's safe and solid weight. An overwhelming sense of security flooded through him at the idea of it, that for a moment he should be a warrior and not a prisoner. Already the gears in his head had begun to turn, finding a use for this little instrument—

A bang on the door almost caused him to drop the rod in surprise. "Hurry up in there!" commanded Getsuei. "I'll break down this door and then I'll break you!"

Sokka almost panicked. His first thought was to wield his new weapon and go after his keeper with it, but he revoked that idea almost instantly. In this weakened state, and with his hands tied, he would be able to get maybe one hit in before she sent him to the floor. For now, he would have to save it. Sokka looked frantically around, trying to figure out what to do with the metal, before he finally took one last look at it and stuffed it down the front of his pants. There, at least until he got back to the cell where he could hide it under his shirt, he knew it would be safe.

"Thank you, pants!" he whispered, half under his breath. For today, no amount of suffering would dampen his spirits.

The plan was now in motion.

xXx

_Drip._

Sokka blinked, hard.

_Drip-drip_.

He took a deep breath. _It's okay, Sokka, just clear your mind._ His fingers clenched at his sides, nails digging into his palms until—

_Drip._

"Agh—!"

It took all of his willpower to stop the yell before it became loud enough for Getsuei to hear him from outside the door. This little procedure was not unusual, but it nevertheless continued to do its job.

Each day, if Azula wasn't around, it was the same. Just as he seemed to close his eyes each night, his cell door opened and he, almost too weak to stand on his own, was half-dragged down a series of hallways. He was no longer forced to wear a bag on his head, since he was now in the prison itself rather than the main part of the hold. Once in his interrogation room, he was seated in that same metal chair, questioned, and when he refused he was beaten in whatever fashion Getsuei felt most desirable that day. After only a short recovery time, she dragged Sokka from his seat and left him in_ this_ gem of a device.

As if Sokka's attempts would do anything, he flexed his arms, testing the binds that held them down. Nothing. Not that he had been expecting anything to happen, of course. Several hours a day, Sokka lay in this simple-yet-effective contraption, one designed to drive him to either insanity or confession. The idea behind the mechanism was that, by restraining his movement—arms, legs, mid-section, and chest all tied down—and using a machine to drip droplets of water on his forehead at random, he would be driven to either speak or go mad.

And to Sokka, this contraption was quite effective. The thing that irritated him most about it was that it seemed quite a waste of water. They gave him enough food and drink to keep him on his feet, but only just. The first time Getsuei left him unattended on the metal table, he tipped his head back in a valiant effort to catch the drops in his mouth. Unfortunately he was positioned such that craning for a drink only aimed the dropper at his eye. Blinking out the tepid water revealed itself to be even less pleasant than its intended purpose.

Instead of succumbing to the design, Sokka used all of his energy and willpower to direct his mind from the drops and focus on escape. Still, every time a bead of water hit him squarely in the forehead, Sokka felt a rush of frustration. What he'd give to be a Waterbender right now. When he was younger and Katara first showed her Waterbending potential, he had resented the water for not giving him the same gift. The childish sense of bitterness returned now, funneled through anxiety. Never had his native element betrayed him as it did now…

"…blind Earthbender's cell—"

Sokka made to sit up so fast that, when the straps holding him down held fast, he gave a sort of gag and was sent backwards against the metal table. At first he thought that the water-dripping device might have caused him to hear things. He shook the fog out of his brain with one good shake and listened fixedly for more. Outside the door of his room, a confused-sounding guard was trying to hold a conversation with an exasperated Getsuei.

"So wait, it's down this hall, left, and then…?"

Getsuei gave a very audible sigh of irritation. Glad that this frustration wasn't directed towards him, Sokka craned his neck sideways as to get a better look at the shadows just beyond the door. A drop of water landed on his temple and ran into his eye, making his eye involuntarily squeeze shut, his mouth slightly ajar.

"Down this hall, turn left at the end, and then take _another_ immediate left followed by a right. The entire hallway is made of wood—you can't miss it. Got it?"

"Yeah, thanks. Spirits, this place is like a giant maze! You can get so lost in here if you don't know the way."

"Yes, that would be the point. Now if you don't mind—"

Her voice was cut off sharply as Getsuei slammed the room's door shut, plunging Sokka into almost complete darkness save for the flickering torchlight at the other side of the room. Sighing, he closed his eyes and allowed relief to flood over him; Toph was alive, and that alone was a gift. Every time he refused to speak, somehow Toph's well being was brought into the argument as leverage. The idea that he could be the cause of her torture—her _death_, even—was almost enough to loosen his tongue.

A bead of water rolled down the side of his face and pooled in his ear. Sokka scowled.

xXx

He had seen neither sun nor moon in too long to know the time of day. What Sokka assumed was morning poked him in the eye, causing him to roll over in his cell with a groan. His hands found and clutched his stomach

_when did I become so thin why can I feel my ribs_

and he kneeled over with his forehead against the floor. A terrible pain had erupted within him, as if something were clawing at his insides and making its way towards his throat. The fate that he had discussed with his reflection seemed to have, at last, manifested itself. The chill of his forthcoming illness had settled upon him with a snap, and as he slowly looked up from the ground, one thing registered in his mind:

It would have to be tonight.

If not, he didn't know how much longer he could hang on. In three days, maybe four, he would be a goner if he didn't get out of this place. The food deprivation wasn't enough on its own, but with the prospect of becoming ill…

_No._

Sokka shook his head. He had done way too much planning, preparation—mental, mostly, but physical as well—to even think about dying. Ever since he'd found that rod (which he had hidden, as a last resort, in his toilet), he had spent a large chunk of each day figuring a use for it. Later tonight it would finally come in handy.

xXx

_Thump!_ Outside the door, the guard gasped audibly and jumped as the sudden noise reverberated down the hallway.

Toph's fist slammed again and again against her wooden cell door. _Thump!_ The want to know—the _need_—had finally burst forth from within in a gale of pounding on the door and yelling at the guard.

"Shut up, you!"

"Where is he? Where is Sokka?" yelled Toph over the guard's command. "Tell me now!"

"I said _shut up!_" shouted the guard, slamming the heel of his steel boot against the door. Toph fell back in alarm at the sound in her sensitive ears. "Do you want to go without food today? Because if you keep this up you will!"

Helpless against the threat, Toph wrapped her arms around her knees and sighed. She wasn't hungry anyway. Her heart ached with emptiness, that feeling of concern that comes with a lack of knowledge, or half the desired knowledge.

One week ago, she had been visited by a cool and collected Azula, who had informed her that Sokka was being "taken care of", and that she was more than welcome to share information. This offhand comment had been less than comforting, especially from her, and since then Toph had hardly slept at all, eating only out of habit and necessity. Whatever Sokka was going through… she hoped it was better than her own imprisonment. The effects of isolation had picked away at her stubborn façade from the start, for harassing one's guard was only as exciting as the information she obtained from it. And that was nothing. Toph thought of Sokka alone, and waiting as she was still waiting, and hated herself because she could do no better for them.

Nauseated, dizzy, fighting tears—because she couldn't cry; she hadn't cried and she wouldn't cry—she bowed her head.

xXx

Almost exactly one month after their capture, on the night where all his plans came together, Sokka sat in the same chair that he had been seated in with a bag over his head. The bag was absent now, but sight didn't help him much in his situation. How many times had he sat here, how many hours of his life had been wasted in this dingy, dimly-lit room? His sweat must be a very part of the air, now.

The plan was only a string of fragments with tentative bridges, but it had to work now. He had invested so much of his heart and soul into it that if it he failed, he might lose it altogether and die in his cell, or at the hands of Azula.

As Getsuei had just informed him, the aforementioned princess was scheduled to arrive later tomorrow, which meant that he would face a terrible cross-examination the next day if he fell short. But for the meantime, it was just him and Getsuei, who had been particularly forceful today with her questioning. Sokka had a hunch that it was because of Azula's pending arrival, but he couldn't be certain because Getsuei was moodier than a starving catcoon. His pensive wanderings did little to keep his mind away. His right ear rang from where she'd smacked him across the head with the back of her hand. A new bruise was blossoming across his arm, wayward thoughts or no. Everything the same.

"When Azula questions you tomorrow, she will not be kind," Getsuei informed him. "I have been less forceful than she, and it would be better that you tell me now than to have to face her. Tell me about the Order, the tile, whatever else you know about the Avatar's future plans."

As per usual, Sokka said nothing at all. His tied fingers, for perhaps the hundredth time, grazed that loose scrap of metal on the back of his chair—and with that redundant gesture came the catalyst to his plan.

"So," he began in what could have been considered a conversational tone, had he not added an edge of spite, "What did Azula do to you to make you do this job? Or do you just like hurting innocent people?"

While he spoke—and he hoped to Yue that he sounded unsuspicious—he began to work the metal scrap with his hands, moving his arms as little as possible. If he could just twist the metal until the screw popped off, he would have a makeshift weapon to aid in his escape. However, managing to pull the scrap off was turning out to be difficult, for he couldn't actually reach the screw with his fingers.

Getsuei stopped where she stood with her back to him, then whipped around with a sneer. "No one from the Water Tribe is innocent," she spat. "I came here of my own accord, for my own purposes. I chose _you_ as my subject. _I_ chose what interrogation methods you would go through."

Sokka arched a sweaty brow, more genuinely interested than he had originally planned. Generally, questions on his part preceded lashings rather than responses.

"But _why?_ Normal people don't just do this because they like it."

At this, Getsuei approached him in a three quick strides, drawing a knife from her belt as she did so. Sokka instinctively cringed backwards, as if expecting a blow, but none came. A bead of sweat rolled, unacknowledged, down the side of his face as he continued to work the metal scrap, twisting it and pushing the screw back more still.

Then, to his immense surprise—and slight horror, breath hitching—Getsuei seated herself lightly upon his knees and pressed the blade of the knife against his throat. Sokka froze, but his will to get that scrap of metal was stronger than he; his hand continued to move with the piece of metal, pace picking up from the wrist while his arm remained perfectly still.

_So close…_

The interrogator leaned in and grazed the tip of her nose against his jawline, ending at the pressure point behind his ear. She inhaled deeply, as if he were wearing some sort of nice-smelling perfume instead of a month's stink. Sokka tensed at the unexpected gesture, eyes widening in a mingled surprise and dismay. Then she whispered:

"My father was killed by the chief of the Southern Water Tribe three months ago."

Instead of replying, for his jaw had tensed in the last seconds and he couldn't seem to think of a good response, he slowed the twisting of the metal to hear more. Her armor-clad weight felt foreign on his lap, the gesture both confusing and unpleasant in its inherent intimacy. His father had killed hers. The edge of the knife was so sharp that it almost didn't sting as it bit down under his chin. He twisted the piece of metal, hoping she wouldn't feel the flick of his wrist behind the chair.

Getsuei continued, pressing harder against his throat with the knife, "After my father was killed so wrongly, I swore that I would get my revenge upon the nation responsible, and at any cost."

At that exact moment, Sokka bent his wrist and the screw flew off. He fumbled the metal piece, managing to hold on to it without causing too much movement. The cough that covered up the sound of the screw hitting the cold floor was not wholly unnatural, as the knife was pressing hard on his windpipe now. If he moved even a fraction to the left or right, he was dead and buried.

Sokka was sure that she could feel his heart racing through their contact. It was what she wanted, after all. His sweat and labored breath pleased her. Getsuei moved closer to him so she could feel him cringe beneath her, when she brought him as close to death as she could without drawing the blade across his throat. She pulled her face away from his ear and peered into his eyes, hate etched into every line of her prematurely aged face. She looked as if he had spat in her face, a thought which briefly occurred to him. The knife didn't budge.

"If I could kill you now, I would," Getsuei said.

"Go ahead," said Sokka, who despite his latest victory felt a surge of anger at her statement. The hate she harbored for him was rolling in waves up her arm, through the knife, and into his chest. "Kill me and see what Azula does."

Getsuei pulled the knife away from his throat and pressed it against his lips. "You have such a pretty mouth, water rat. I'd hate to see it go."

After a few long moments in which they glared unblinkingly at one another, Getsuei stood and stepped back. She sheathed the knife at her waist and cracked the knuckles of one hand against her waist.

Sokka realized that he had been holding his breath. Evidently she had not noticed his prior actions, though for a moment he had been sure that she had. He tucked the scrap of metal into the rope of his bindings and clung to it with one hand. That was the last piece, the starting point of the final move.

He could almost taste the freedom, it was so close.

xXx

"Okay, you can do this."

His whisper went unheard by the guard, barely audible to even himself. Sokka knelt with his back to the solid cell door, his materials laid out in front of him. The thin but heavy rod would not only aid in his escape from the cell, but would be a deadly weapon in the hands of Toph Bei Fong. The scrap of metal was far smaller, only as long as his thumb, but it would serve its purpose too. Beside those he laid the strips of cloth that, long ago, he had wrapped around his wrists as a measure of protection. They were stiff and bloodied now, the poor things, from acting as makeshift bandages all this time.

Different possible scenarios flitted across his mind, some good and others not so much. In his thoughts he hardly realized that his hands were shaking. The tattered tunic that he had been wearing during his capture was now back on his body, the shades of red darkened with grime and flaky blood.

Now that he was here, with the plan at hand and the prospect of failure all too possible, his immense confidence vanished. Sokka was left shaken and afraid. So many things could go wrong; the guard might run off and get help without following his orders to take care of it first, or worse yet—if the guard decided to finish him off… He'd be too weak to fight back. He could barely keep a steady hand now.

Sokka reached out, touched the metal with his fingertips, drew back again. Outside the cell, the guard gave a bored cough. It was time.

Slowly, Sokka moved his hand over the ground in front of him and picked up the metal scrap with a shaking hand. Light glinted off the sharpened edge, warning him of what might come should he fail.

"No," he whispered, pressing the metal to his mouth and feeling the coldness seep into his skin. A breath of a prayer escaped from his lips, a pleading to whatever higher power that his attempts would not be in vain.

"Please—" He was cut off abruptly by a heave in the pit of his stomach, one spawned from his fear and desperation and illness, but there was no substance within to expel. Closing his eyes against the scene before him, the cool metal still pressed against his lips with both hands, he spoke again. "_Please_, Yue, I don't—" Words failed him then, until Sokka managed to finish in a fractured whisper, "I don't want to die."

With a deep breath, he braced his arm in the joint of his leg and pressed it against his side to keep it still. The blood in his veins raced at top speed, and it seemed that no sound in the world existed save for his pounding heart. He reassured himself, ironically, with the thought that he'd been cut up a hundred times now and not died. One little sliver of a wound would make little difference in comparison. The trouble was that he had to do it himself.

The metal in his hand found the crook of his arm and lightly traced the area he had picked out after much consideration. The idea was to make the smallest cut possible, just enough so that the guard, upon inspection, would think that he wasn't lying. Originally he had planned to go without the mark—if he made even the slightest error, went just a little too deep, he was done for certain—but he would need to get the guard close enough to make his move, and so this was the only way. He fashioned a loop out of one of the cloth strips and stuck his hand through it, securing it just above his elbow. Then he pulled it taut and stuck the end in his mouth to keep it tight.

Sokka, teeth clenched and body rigid, pressed down with the uneven metal and drew a single red line across his forearm. The pain was, admittedly, not half as bad as any interrogation that he had faced. He breathed a sigh of relief and tucked the metal into the front of his tunic, eyes glued to his forearm. He released his makeshift tourniquet and pinched the wound with his free hand. Tiny pinpricks of blood rose to the surface, came together, and rolled down toward his wrist in a warm rivulet.

He had to be crazy to think that this might work. The image of his former self was shaking its head at his stupidity. How hopeless was he, to weaken himself further in hope of overcoming those who were far stronger to begin with?

"Okay, what now…?"

Sokka had spoken not because he didn't know what to do, but rather to pierce the roaring silence that had engulfed the prison cell. Almost mechanically, for he had rehearsed this moment over in his head thousands of times, Sokka carried out the plan that he had been revising since day one. Scooping up the metal rod, Sokka shuffled on his knees to the very center of the room. He raised the rod far over his head, which had the added effect of oozing blood down his arm, and slammed it down against the floor.

The clash of metal on metal was followed almost immediately by a "What the—?" from the surprised guard. Sokka thought just in time to hide the rod between his knees. The masked face appeared through the small window of the door. When he saw Sokka sitting there, pale as death and clutching his bloodied arm, he gave a small shout and pulled the cell door open.

"What happened?" exclaimed the guard, who had most likely not been expecting to have to deal with this sort of thing today. Behind him, the cell door remained open towards the hallway.

Sokka rolled his eyes backwards and gave his best impersonation of a pained moan. "Agh, I'm dying!" he exclaimed, shoving the cut beneath the nose of the guard. "Oh, the pain! The pain!"

Taken aback, the guard dropped to his knees with a small gasp, tearing his helmet off to better inspect the wound. He grabbed Sokka's rather gruesome-looking arm and examined the faint cut—which, as Sokka had planned, looked near mutilated with all of the blood.

"They told me you might try something like this," the guard said sternly. Sokka tensed for a moment before the guard added, as if in lecture, "Look at this! Well you regret it now, don't you, kid?"

"Make it stop!" Sokka pleaded in an acting voice that would have made Katara shudder. To the guard, however, Sokka must have seemed rather convincing, for the man continued to gaze at the supposed "gash" with horror.

"I-I gotta—" stammered the guard, making to rise to his feet. "I've gotta get someone. Hold on, I'll be—"

Quick as one could be while running on nothing but fear of failure, Sokka pulled the makeshift blade from his tunic and, in a swift motion that he had not thought his tired body could achieve, slashed the guard's side across the weak section of his armor. Droplets of blood flew from the wound, drenching Sokka's hand and spattering on both of their faces. Gasping in surprise, the guard released Sokka's arm to clutch at his own freely-bleeding side as it began to ooze from between his fingers. In the seconds that followed, Sokka leapt to his feet and, with all the force that he could muster, thrust the metal rod across the guard's face.

A small bit of scrambling ensued. The guard, whose nose was gushing from Sokka's blow, made a noble attempt at stopping the warrior from escaping. In the very first moment of the scuffle, the guard and Sokka fought for possession of the rod, which went ricocheting off the wall and out the door. Sokka tried to dash for it, but the guard reached out one hand and grabbed Sokka's tunic. Sokka, with no muscle power over his opponent, pulled the scrap metal from his tunic and drove it straight into the guard's shoulder. The man opened his mouth to scream, but Sokka—his brain was reeling with the magnitude of what he was doing—clapped a hand over the guard's mouth and nose.

The seconds fought him as they passed. Sokka willed himself not to budge or lose grip, hating himself but pressing harder still upon the man's mouth and nose. Then, finally, the guard's eyelids fluttered. He shunted sideways, painfully slow, until keeling over in an unconscious heap.

Sokka had planned on stealing the guard's armor. He had also apparently underestimated the residual mess. Now as he stared down at his handiwork, he couldn't imagine a scenario where he could get away without being noticed. Sokka unfastened the guard's blood-spattered armor and fixed it upon himself. The boots were too big; he dragged his feet awkwardly about the cell in them, using the hem of his tunic as a mop for the bloodied armor. When he'd cleaned up the majority of the mess, he gently lifted the guard's helmet from the cell floor and set it over his own head.

"It's not personal," he said, fastening the last buttons with shaking fingers.

With that, Sokka stooped, grabbed up the guard's forgotten sword and the metal rod, and darted from his cell.

The hallways of the Hold were disturbingly empty. The sound of his own boot-clad footsteps echoing off the building's metal walls seemed thunderously loud in his ears. If someone had heard the commotion—he could fight off one person in this state, maybe two—well, he didn't much want to think of it.

Sokka passed rows after rows of silent cells, but he didn't have time to peek through the bars to check for other prisoners. Sweat began to gather on the sword's hilt from his palms. His heart was hammering, if possible, louder than when he had first been captured. Where was Toph's cell again? Sokka went over the directions in his head again, running along and occasionally making turns until he finally reached what he believed to be the last hallway before Toph's.

Sokka turned the corner of the hallway at top speed, stumbling as if drunk in his too-large boots, and ran headlong into an armed silhouette. The sword dropped to the ground with a clang, a startled gasp escaping from his barely-parted lips as someone reached out and grabbed his wrists in a tight grasp. A hand tugged the helmet up over his head.

"Why am I completely unsurprised by your feeble escape attempt?"

Instead of halting his attempts, the voice only made him struggle more. Azula's grip tightened on his wrists—bloody and eerie in the torchlight—nails threatening to pierce his skin if he did not hold still. Out of nowhere they were surrounded by guards and a sour-looking Getsuei, as if they had been lying in wait. He had been so close—_so close_—and for what? Sokka's thrashing only gave way once that bubble of hope burst in his chest, sending forth a despaired cry from his throat. His legs—thin, weak—gave out from beneath him, and he would have collapsed to the ground had he not been manually held up.

Unfazed, Azula addressed one of the guards in a casual tone, "Take his tunic; you know what to do with it."

The guard stepped forward and unfastened Sokka's metal chest plate. Another pulled a knife from his belt, manually cut the fabric of Sokka's tunic at the shoulders, and pulled it from his body. Azula continued to speak to the fallen warrior while the others stripped him of his borrowed armor, piece by piece, until finally he was left kneeling barefoot in his ragged pants.

"I think you have wasted enough of my time. Today you will dispense the information we need, or you will be executed in the name of Fire Lord Ozai."

Sokka said nothing as the magnitude of these words sunk into his head. He did not fight as a pair of guards grabbed his upper arms and began to drag him, quite literally, across the cold floor. He did nothing to stop the tears now freefalling down his face.

He was down, it was over. Sokka of the Water Tribe closed his eyes and succumbed to his desperation.

xXx

Toph Bei Fong blew her dirty hair away from her eyes with a puff of breath and took a bite from her stale bread. In her other hand was a wooden cup, filled with water that seemed to disappear in her mouth, never quenching her thirst. Normally her guard was her only visitor. So when a new voice rang in her ears, the Blind Bandit was naturally very curious and just a little bit (very) fearful.

"I have some news for you," said the new guard, a more deep-voiced man than his associate.

Her grip tightening on her wooden cup, Toph rose to her feet and paced over to the small window. "What?"

"Just a few minutes ago, our soldiers found your friend dead in his cell," he informed her in a neutral tone. The cup fell from Toph's hand and crashed to the floor, sending water all over her sliver-cut feet, but the sound was a distant one. "He gutted himself—"

"No!" Toph flung herself at the door and grabbed the wooden bars in her hands, her heart beating so fast that she found herself energized with the fear of it. "I don't believe you—Sokka wouldn't!"

The guard merely replied, "You would be surprised what people will do."

A sort of pressure thumped in her ears, all noise sounding as if she were a mile underwater. She felt, for a moment, that if she grabbed the wooden bars she could tear them from the wall, grab the guard's metal helmet, and be free. But the strength subsided as the news sank in, real and dizzying in its immensity, and was replaced by a short-lived wave of anger.

"You're lying!" she shouted, reason momentarily blocked by rage. "Don't you lie to me—I'll beat you so hard you won't know your own name!"

"If you don't believe it, then here."

Her barrage of insults dropped off as quickly as it began. Blindly, Toph reached up—hesitant, not wanting to know but forcing herself to know anyway—and entangled her fingers in the fabric that was handed to her.

"No…" Her voice was a whisper. She didn't want to believe it, but somehow she knew that the tattered tunic in her hands was his. Toph lifted it to her nose and breathed in, slowly.

It _was_ his. She couldn't see the colors or know the texture (she supposed that they were probably faded anyway, although she didn't know what would look like), but after spending months upon months with him, his smell jumped out at her like nothing else would, like an image branded into her mind. Something had changed, though, as if the Sokka she knew was an undercurrent to the new smell that rose from the damp fabric. He had been overpowered by a terrible, coppery smell that she knew but couldn't quite name.

Before Toph could stop it—though she would not have tried, not now—her knees gave out from below her and she sank to the wooden floor, still clutching the rumpled tunic to her chest. The wetness on the fabric spread over her hands, smudging her skin.

This was it.

At that moment, Toph knew that she would die in this miserable place. She found that she didn't care. How could she, when her brain was spinning and her heart was aching with this—this complete _loss_? She wanted to lash out, to find the parties responsible and throttle them with her own hands, until she could feel their breath leave them. And yet with every angry thought, a horrible new idea followed right behind it:

_It's over._

One teardrop slipped from her eye, and then another, and Toph let them fall.

"I cried, Sokka," she gasped into the threads of his tunic. "I… I'm sorry."

xXx

**TBC**


	3. Part III: Desperation

A/n: For notes, disclaimer, warnings, and acknowledgments, please see the first chapter.

Thanks for reading!

* * *

_Part III: Brute Force_

Back when the Southern Water Tribe had only just gotten involved in the war, Bato told Sokka that in order for things to get better, they first had to get worse. But surely Bato had never seen this coming.

_And where is Bato now?_ the back of his mind bitterly said. _Dead or rotting in a cell somewhere._

Either way, Bato and the rest of the Water Tribe—his own father—were better off than he. Better dead or in a cell than in this place.

After his re-capture in the hallway of the Hold, Sokka—exhausted from his efforts and a lack of both sleep and food—had been dragged by his arms to a new room. This one appeared almost exactly the same as his old room, save for the instruments inside it. (And oh, how it struck him as odd that he thought of the place he had been tortured as "his" room.) Much like the room in which Sokka had spent much of the last month, this space was empty except for a handful of innocent-looking devices whose intentions Sokka knew were all too awful.; two upright podiums that stood about six feet apart sat in the center of the room. On the other side, a tank stood with a cloth draped over it, as if to keep its contents a surprise.

Now he stood between those two podiums with his arms extended on either side of him, wrists shackled to chains that held him upright and in place. Legs that once assisted in fighting enemies and running miles at a time could hardly support the scarce weight upon them. His knees buckled with the slightest pressure and he would fall forward until only his chains held him, in which case Azula would grab him by his straggly hair and yank him back up.

Each hour crawled forward, each one longer than the next, Sokka growing ever more tired and Azula ever more annoyed, aggressive, though outwardly she held her same collected demeanor. Each flick of her wrist brought his breath to a halt, her knife glinting with the same subtlety as her yellow eyes.

"Are you telling me that you and your friend separated from your group with the White Lotus in your possession, and yet you know nothing about the Order and its members?"

Azula turned on her boot-clad heel so that her face was close to his, her hands clasped behind her back. They were opposites, true enough—Sokka was held up mostly by his arms and she held herself with the utmost dignity—but his fierce defiance mirrored her antagonism. Through his pained breaths, Sokka stared back at Azula with as much hate and defiance as she expressed apathy.

"I told you," he said, voice strong only because it had to be, "I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never heard of the Order of the White Lotus."

"Then what were you doing wandering around in the outskirts of town?"

"I was—" he faltered slightly, then continued, "I was trying to figure out what the tile means _because_ I don't know."

A flash of triumph flickered across her face, so quickly that he almost thought he'd imagined it. "And from whom did you receive the tile?"

Sokka said nothing. The name "Piandao" had leapt to his tongue, but he forced it back down with a hard swallow. The thought had passed to give her the name, just so he might take leave of this misery. It couldn't possibly be worth it, despite Azula's acute interest in the tile. It was either something that could end the war or nothing at all. Sokka didn't care to think on it any more. His body had come to terms with its end and his mind was catching up. At this point, keeping his mouth shut meant never giving Azula what she wanted most, and that was all that mattered.

Azula stepped a half pace forward and pressed the flat edge of her knife against the area just below his ribcage. Sokka cringed as far back as he could while suspended between the podiums.

"Silence," she hissed, "is not an answer."

His eyes widened suddenly in semi-surprise, a choked gasp escaping as she tilted the blade sideways across his abdomen, just enough to draw blood. Sokka tensed up, and it was only when she pulled back did he breathe again. He didn't look—he didn't want to look, and looking might only cause him to collapse—but he nevertheless felt the cut sting as sweat rolled down his chest and mixed with blood. It was maddening, to know that Azula had marked his own body while he stood and watched. In the impossible chance that he left this place, the scars would follow him for the rest of his life. One more for every silent moment, every precious breath.

But more maddening still than the knife against his skin was the ringing that erupted in his head with every frantic beat of his heart:

_I was so close to being free. So close._

The prospect of being denied his freedom was more powerful than his interrogator. And even more powerful than that was the knowledge that he was to die in mere hours if he didn't start talking.

And talking wasn't an option. Sokka knew that and so must Toph.

_Toph._

How many times had he thought of her in the last hours? Her mischievous smile, her rocklike demeanor; it all meant so much more than when he walked freely. Every time Toph had been somehow dragged into the occasion, whether as a threat or as leverage or anything at all, every time he had fought back with renewed vigor. And for what?

"I ask again: What are the Avatar's plans? Where is he heading?" said Azula, rounding on him once more.

For nothing.

Sokka's eyes followed the princess as she walked, until she circled behind him and he could see her no longer. "I don't know. Aang wouldn't stay in the same place as he was a month ago… well, if you hadn't captured us then he might have, but since you _had_ to go and—"

He gave a sort of yelp as she yanked his messy wolftail backwards and placed the tip of the knife at his throat.

"You can't afford to be snide with me," she muttered, low. "If you don't tell me exactly what I need to know in this meeting—these few hours, and no more—then you will die."

"Exactly," replied Sokka in what he deemed was a calm tone, though his heart was racing in his chest and he felt nothing but fear and anger. "If I die, you still won't know where Aang is or was, who gave me the tile, what our plans are."

Instead of asking him again, Azula took the knife away from his throat and placed it on his collarbone, whispering in his ear as she traced the edge along the sensitive skin, "I should cut your throat right now. Or take off your arm—" The knife moved to his left arm. Sokka's knuckles clenched as he fought his restraints, the shackles digging into his wrists and leaving them raw. "You won't need that without your boomerang, will you? Or, better yet, I could start on your friend—"

He could almost feel her wicked smirk, and it scared him almost to words. Azula was a master of persuasion. Sokka could only do so much against her powerful influence.

"She'd rather die," Sokka responded, choking slightly as Azula gave his wolf's tail another hard tug backwards. The knife dug almost delicately into his upper arm and he shook with the effort of restraining a yell. It was a cross between a sting and a searing ache, more than he could stand but still not enough.

"Are you sure? Because if your life were in danger, I think she would talk. After all, she seemed awfully upset at the news of your untimely death." Sokka said nothing. Azula pulled the knife away and wiped the blood on the side of his pants. "No? Well let's find out, shall we? Getsuei!"

From the shadow of the room's corner stepped Getsuei, whose permanently scowling face looked graver than ever. Her fingers wound like claws around the handle of the cart, upon which sat the covered tank.

"Roll it over here."

Nodding once, Getsuei strode over to the covered tank, pushed it across the room until it was in front of Sokka. She pulled away the black sheet to reveal nothing more than a large glass basin of… water, from what he could tell. Though he was immediately relieved that there was no sign of a piranhashark, he wouldn't be sure that the liquid wasn't corrosive. One of Sokka's eyebrows shot up at the liquid as it swished around the glass, foreboding in its innocence.

"You need a story, something to let her know the extent of your suffering. Frankly, I don't think that the sight of blood will do it justice."

Getsuei stepped forward, drawing her own knife from her belt—the same one that she had used on him only the day before, Sokka noted darkly. She shoved the blunt end under his throat, then turned the handle around so that the sharp blade rested against his Adam's apple. Two consecutive clicks followed. Sokka's arms fell from his bonds, only to have his wrists tied tightly behind his back again. He dropped forward slightly against the knife, managing to steady himself before the silver edge cut into him. Azula tightened the bonds in a series of sharp tugs that made his fingers clench with the pain of his bloodied wrists, and only when she nodded from behind him did Getsuei step back.

Sokka was by no means prepared when Azula grabbed him suddenly again by his warrior's wolf tail. She shoved him forward, down until his head was completely submerged in the tank.

The effect was instantaneous, a sort of insanity that he had never before experienced. It was as if his instincts overrode every once of logic in his mind; his body acted of its own accord, wrenching backwards until a pair of arms wrapped around his upper half to keep him steady. His lungs were empty of air, mind buzzing with panic. But when Sokka struggled yet again to pull his head up, the intense pain that erupted in the back of his neck told him either Getsuei or Azula had put a blade against his skin to assure that he could not get free. He would have to breathe in the next seconds, lest he pass out or inhale the water—

And then he was back in the air, gasping for breath and struggling to figure out what had just happened. Getsuei appeared in his line of sight with her typical scowl more profound than before, the light of the single torch dancing off of her reddened knife. Sokka blinked to clear the water from his eyes, but this time he had no shirt to wipe his face on. He had nothing here, nothing at all, and Azula fed off of that revelation.

"You know," she casually threw out as she stood half beside him with a firm grasp on his hair. "While we're here, you might as well give me some information. This can all be over."

Coughing, Sokka spat, "No."

Azula shrugged. "Suit yourself."

This time, while Sokka knew it was coming, he had only taken a half of a breath before Azula had shoved him back under, and in the process of breathing he inhaled a mouthful of water. It was a wonder that his lungs didn't explode. That dreadful feeling washed over him again, consuming his entire body until he was sure that he was going to die. Sokka's arms and legs began to slow in their protest as his brain seemed to shudder to a halt. The strong hand of looming death had begun to tighten around his throat, rendering him senseless and mindless. And it was strange, he thought, that his final flickering thoughts were of better times, of Toph and her defiant laugh, the petite girl that could take him in any contest of strength—

Sokka was only vaguely aware when he surfaced again. Azula pushed him backward, where he stumbled into one of the two pillars and collapsed to the ground, semi-conscious with his hands tied behind his back. His legs automatically tucked upwards into his chest as he coughed and spluttered, eyes shut against the pain in his torso and neck—both were dripping with a ghastly mix of water and blood. But no sooner had he stopped coughing and spitting up water did a sharp pain erupt in the small of his back. Sokka cried out in a rasping exclamation of agony. His entire body was on fire with the force of it, searing with ache and sweat and prolonged lack of air.

"Get up," Getsuei said bitterly, pulling him forcibly to his feet by his arm before Azula could kick him a second time. Steadying his shoulders with one hand, she cupped his cheek and wiped the wetness from his face. Azula, heading for the door, didn't witness the gesture. Sokka stared at Getsuei's dark, angular features through half-lidded eyes, mouth slightly ajar in his hazy confusion.

"What—?"

Before he had had time to register this somewhat strange signal, Azula summoned forth two guards with a wave of her hand. Getsuei, her eyebrows still furrowed with presumably dark thought, gave Sokka a gruff shove backwards that sent him straight into the expecting arms of the guards. He, too aberrantly frail to object, found that he could do nothing more than let the armed guards drag him backwards.

"Get him out of here," said Azula, folding her hands behind her back.

Even in a state of exhausted semi-consciousness, Sokka still managed to shoot Azula a narrow-eyed glare. She didn't bother responding.

xXx

Toph had been sleeping. She did that as often as she could, deeming that even her troubled, Sokka-ful dreams were better than the Sokka-less, incarcerated hours that she otherwise lived. Somewhere off in the distance, perhaps in a different dream, she heard him whisper her name as if in disbelief. She ignored it and rolled over on one side, tucking the rumpled red tunic beneath her chin. It was all just a terrible nightmare, a dream that, if she concentrated hard enough, would leave her to her hunger and her sorrow.

But the voice—his voice, tinged with a roughness that should not have been there but nevertheless sounded _real_—persisted still. "Toph!"

Toph's eyes snapped open as the realization hit her at full force. The voice hadn't been in her dream at all, but just outside her cell door!

"Wh-who's there?" Her voice sounded frightened in her own ears, unnatural to the brazen Earthbender. The prison had taken its toll. "Is that…?"

"It's me, Toph!" answered the voice, urgent but weak.

Toph's ears seemed to twitch at the hum of his voice, and then even more so as a click sounded and the cell door opened. A loud thump (accompanied by a grunt of pain) beside her told her that she was no longer alone in the cell.

"S-_Sokka_." It was the only thing that she could say, perhaps the only word that she would ever be able to speak again, so long as it was available. She grasped for another statement, something that could tell him what this moment meant to her. She faltered as her voice wavered. There were no words.

Unwilling to believe, she reached out in the darkness that surrounded her and sought him. Sokka put a great deal of effort into guiding her towards him, but she could tell from his harsh breathing that he was not well. Toph stretched her arms outward until they found him, grabbed his hand and pulled herself beside him. While one hand steadied her wasted frame—in her disbelief and lack of sustenance, she feared that she might topple over—the other found his heaving chest and rested, palm-down, over his heart. Sure enough, the steady pulse below her hand solidified his existence, his life. She nearly fainted.

"They told me you were dead," she said tearfully, failing to rid her voice of the pathetic waver. "And I believed them."

Sokka gave a feeble cough. "I'm not so sure that they were wrong."

This comment made all too apparent the fact that he was, as she could tell, dripping wet. The hand on his chest moved upwards, fingers running along abrasion after abrasion, Toph growing more and more horrified at the feeling of welts beneath her fingertips. "_Please_ tell me this is water all over you," she gasped, aghast.

"Most of it," replied Sokka breathlessly, outwardly unsurprised with her claim. It was then that he noticed—and, consequently, she noticed—that her pale face was stained with the remnants of two new tears. "_Toph_," he began, his voice breaking in her keen ears. "I—"

He was abruptly cut off when she threw herself at him and, not caring that he was dripping with sweat and water and blood, locked her arms around him in a tight embrace. Caught off guard somewhat by the force of her collision into him, Sokka was dazed for only a moment before returned the hug in full despite the acute pain. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her as close as he could manage without fear of breaking her.

"I thought you'd died," she choked, face pressed against the side of his chest. "They threw your tunic at me and told me that you were dead and I didn't want to believe it, but… We've been here for so long that I just…I couldn't handle it."

"I tried to get us out," Sokka said. He closed his eyes and the wetness seeped from them. A teardrop dripped from his chin onto her dirty clothing. "I had a plan and it almost worked, but Azula caught me and—" he broke off at the thought of retelling his past day. He couldn't say it.

A weighty silence fell upon the pair. So much had happened in the last day, yet neither seemed to be able nor willing to discuss it. Every few seconds he would wince involuntarily, breath hitching in his throat, but the thought of pain or illness had no place beside Toph Bei Fong. Toph seemed to notice it, though, and—his heart gave an ache at the gesture—she pulled away from him.

"Here." Toph leaned backwards, seeking out something behind her with her hand until it closed upon the red cloth. She sat back up again and, in her pointedly Tophlike manner, handed it to its owner.

Sokka looked down at the almost unrecognizable tunic. "I can't wear it with the shoulders cut, but thanks I guess."

Whether it was because she had been holding it beforehand or just because it was an old friend in a cold place, the tattered clothing was as warm in his hands as if he had just removed it. Toph's fingers gripped the hem of his pants where they cut off at the knee. He wiped the majority of his upper body with the tunic.

"Hmm," he observed. There was almost a touch of his forgotten humor, "makes a good rag, though." Sokka ripped off a small piece of the hem and tied it around his upper arm, where Azula's knife wound had only just begun to clot. "And an excellent bandage."

Toph uttered a slight, surprised laugh—perhaps the most wonderful sound Sokka had heard in the last month, maybe even his whole life. If he hadn't been so exhausted, he might have smiled.

Instead, Sokka took one of Toph's hands in his and guided her down beside him until they both lay, adjacent, on the hard ground. With one hand he stuck the rolled-up tunic behind their heads as a sort of makeshift pillow while his free arm found a comfortable spot around her shoulders. The torch outside the cell door cast a flickering, orange light over the pair.

An artificial night settled upon the Hold. Sokka sighed, the loose strands of his hair falling over his face as he glanced down at the figure resting beside him.

"Are you sleeping, Toph?"

"No."

Again, he sighed and

_Please, Yue, I don't—_

ran a hand over his face. All that he had gone through today had served a purpose, one in which Toph was already involved, even if she didn't know it yet. He scanned her, took in both what had changed and what remained the same after the time they had been apart. Those dark circles under her eyes were not natural, he decided. Or perhaps too much so.

_I don't want to die._

"You should know," he began resignedly, rubbing his temples in frustration, "Azula is going to use me to get to get information from you; that's why all of this happened today. It's probably going to happen tomorrow—well, it has to happen tomorrow, because—"

_Don't say it._

Beside him, Toph's brows furrowed in confusion. "Because what?"

The execution. "Because they know I'm… getting sick. It's even on the outside—not just when I cough or anything like that, but this whole thing has just turned me… wrong." Sokka paused in his response to scoot closer. "I'm trying _so hard_ not to lose myself, but I think it's happening. I mean, I saw my reflection a few weeks ago and I couldn't… I had to look away. It was like seeing a spirit. I didn't even recognize myself."

Toph brushed her hand against the inward curve of his stomach. "Well, you are really skinny, Sokka."

"Thanks, Toph," he deadpanned. "But seriously—" he turned sideways so that he could face her. She, sensing his movement, did the same toward him. "You can't tell them anything at all. I don't care what they do. Winning this war is more important."

Her pale lips turned downward in a frown. "Sokka, I—"

"Toph, this is important," said Sokka, whose frown matched the Blind Bandit's. "They'll say and do anything to get you to talk. They told me that the warriors were all killed. That crazy apprentice and Azula put cuts all over me and shoved my head in a fish tank! But you _can't tell them anything_."

"I can't even see in here… I can't _do_ anything," said a very defensive Toph. "I've never felt like this, not in my entire life. If they… do something to make me think…" She shook her head. "Not everyone is as strong as you. I used to think I was, but—"

Her tone, the doubt blatant in her voice, struck him harder than Getsuei's lashes. Out of this fear, Sokka pulled Toph closer to him. He had to know that there was a heartbeat inside her, that she was still alive, still the same Toph that could pummel him into the dirt and laugh as she helped him back up.

"We can do this, Toph," he muttered—almost breathed, it was so quiet—in her ear. She tensed up beside him, shaking from whatever happened to be running through her mind. He supposed that she had a lot to think about.

Finally, with the faintest of desperate sighs, Toph wrapped one arm around his waist and placed the palm of her other hand, once again, flat against his chest. "I can't make any promises this time," she said, softly, reveling in the beating beneath her palm, "but I'll try."

"That's good enough for me."

Sokka closed his eyes, half voluntarily and half from an unbearable wave of fatigue. While he felt a terrible vulnerability in the Hold, here—Toph's arms wrapped around his waist, her face resting in the curve of his shoulder—somehow he still felt that as helpless as they were, they protected one another.

Toph's steady, slow breathes indicated to Sokka that she had begun to fall asleep. Sokka breathed a sigh and pressed his lips against her forehead in a chaste kiss, then rested his chin upon the crown of her head. It would be a night of troubled sleep, for both of them, but it would have to do.

xXx

"I hope you've slept well."

By no means was Azula's voice the one he would have chosen to wake up to. Fighting a groan, Sokka opened his eyes to find that he was still lying on the floor of the cell with one arm draped around Toph's shoulders. Beside him, Toph's eyes snapped open at Azula's arrival.

A _click!_ sounded. The door swung open to reveal Azula, flanked on one side by Getsuei and on the other side by several armed guards. Each of them wore armor fitted from wood. Sokka's heart plummeted. This was it. He had had his test, and now it was Toph's turn. A fleeting voice in his head asked if Azula had been plotting this moment all along. He certainly didn't doubt that she was capable of setting up such a plan.

Sokka forced the thought away in order to concentrate on the situation, which took more effort than he expected. One of the guards strode toward him with a length of rope. Sokka ignored his advance, instead ducking to help a groggy Toph to her feet. Getsuei strode the length of the tiny cell and dropped to one knee in front of Toph.

"Check the bonds around her feet, then tie her hands" said Azula. "Ensure that they don't come loose. I want you and him—" she pointed at the unarmed guard who had just finished tying Sokka's hands, "to carry the Metalbender. If you let her loose, your families will be the ones to pay for it."

The apprentice and the guard obeyed, and a moment later announced that they were almost prepared to leave. Sokka must have been in this situation fifty times in the past month, but the scenario never struck him so severely as it did while he watched Getsuei shove Toph roughly against the wall, pinning her arms behind her back before she tied them with a thick rope. Toph remained determinedly still, wincing only slightly as her body crashed into the wooden panel. He had always been the one in danger, at least visibly so. But Toph was now an active participant. He almost wished he'd told her about the execution.

Almost.

As the guards rounded on him next and made to shove him into the hallway, Sokka attempted to stifle a raspy cough. His insides objected, lungs and throat aching until he grimaced. Getsuei's expression soured into an even deeper scowl. Sokka wondered briefly if she had a fear of germs or whether she just thought he was, as a whole, generally revolting. While he struggled to recover from the coughing fit, Azula observed wordlessly. Her expression was unreadable, eyes calculating.

"Begin," the princess ordered, stepping aside to allow the guards to pass. "If one tries to escape, kill the other. I'm sick of wasting my time with this nonsense."

One guard scooped Toph up with one arm and tossed her effortlessly over his shoulder. The only indication that Toph had even noticed was the tiny grunt that escaped her. Getsuei trailed close behind the guard, as if she were waiting for Toph to fight back.

They didn't bother to put a sack over Sokka's head this time. He pressed his lips together and walked with his head bent low, if only to keep from looking back.

xXx

Azula paced across the length of the wood-paneled room in long, even strides, her hands clasped behind her back. For a second time Sokka found himself tied with rope between two tall podiums. Toph stood just off to the side. Much to his relief, Toph did not seem visibly affected. She looked frail, yes, and unsure, but her pose was a sturdy one nonetheless, her head tilted down ever so slightly with her hair falling over her eyes. She was listening hard, he noted, for while Toph could not see what was around her, she still retained instincts and a powerful sense of direction.

Upon entering this third interrogation room, Sokka wondered if the Hold was just an underground city where otherwise honest people came to gather information from detainees. He imagined without an ounce of humor a large, armored man sitting at a table with a stack of scrolls. He would take one, roll it out, read the description, and mark it with either a big red check or an X. Then he would set it aside and have a sip of fresh tea. Sokka wondered where his file might end up. Did they keep it in this fortress or send them off to the Fire Lord for a good laugh…?

Azula, having watched them for a short period of time, stopped and stared at the tired pair. Her gaze shifted over Sokka's shoulder to Getsuei—and oh, how he hated not being able to sense her next move—and then to the guards by the door. She looked peculiar without an ounce of metal in her outfit. No crown, no double-layered boots, a modest cloth belt. But Sokka didn't dare question her effectiveness. By all appearances, she was as dangerous as ever.

"We have been through this many times now," said Azula in her even tones, eyes flashing in a way that made him shift in his bindings. Her face bore no smile, brows arched in dissatisfaction. "However, in light of recent events, I realized that the strategy must be altered. Now you, my blind friend, will play the victim."

Not even Toph's fingers twitched. Pride swelled up in Sokka's chest.

"I have three questions: who delivered the Order of the White Lotus tile to your companion? Where is the Avatar and where is he heading? And, finally, what is your group's wartime strategy? After your failure on the Day of Black Sun, you must have reconsidered your options, few as they are…"

"That's _four _questions, Hot Lips."

Sokka was so startled by Toph's comment that he actually laughed—or, rather, his stomach spasmed in a mixture of horror and surprise, yielding something of a snort. He thought that such a quip might earn them a beating, but Azula simply ignored her. For some odd reason, Sokka was surprised when Toph remained unfazed at Azula's slight, steadfast. He supposed he shouldn't have been. Sokka was so focused on her that when Getsuei's whip fist came in contact with the vulnerable soft spot of his shoulder, he was not wholly prepared for it. Arching backwards, he gave a surprised gasp. Beside him, Toph jumped, dropping her pretense as face twisted with shock.

"What's going on?"

Sokka attempted to smile even though his eyes were streaming and she wouldn't be able to see it. The muscles in the stricken spot had tensed up and taken his breath away. It reminded him vaguely of nights where he would wake up with his leg in knots, in which case he would have to clamber out of bed and stretch until the pain wore off. As if to do just that, Sokka leaned backward and pulled his arms forward, only to feel the back of his knees explode into agony and give out beneath him. Getsuei was not picky about where she struck him, nor was she ignorant in the ways of pressure points. Again, she struck him hard—this time with her switch—in the back of his knees, and he collapsed against the ropes with a pitiful, inadvertent shout.

Azula continued to watch this scene unfold before her, keen eyes darting between Sokka and Toph, whose hands had clapped themselves over her mouth to keep back either a confession or a scream. Sokka imagined, in his teary-eyed state as he struggled to get to his feet again, that Azula would be happy with either of the two.

"You probably realize that if you don't speak, this will only continue," Azula addressed Toph with raised eyebrows. "Of course, either way he will have to die, but when and how is up to you."

Why, why hadn't he told her about the execution? Sokka scolded himself. However, one look at her expression—surprised, terrified, all the while with an attempt at bravery—told him the answer: he would never have been able to make her feel like this, even if he was only the messenger. Azula, on the other hand, had no such qualms. He knew that she would press forward at all costs until he was either broken or dead. It didn't matter.

Azula read her confusion at once and with ease. Her long fingers rapped on her waist for a moment as she contemplated the next motion. That chill ran through Sokka again, one that had nothing to do with his aching shoulder and stinging knees. The fleeting image of Azula—namely, Azula with her face close enough to his so that he could see the details of her yellow eyes—passed across his line of sight instead of stars when he was struck for the third time, around the waist.

He struggled to keep silent and failed. The strangled sound worked its way up from the very bottom of his stomach. "Aaugh!"

"Stop!" Toph cried, clapping her hands over her ears.

Panting, Sokka made a feeble attempt at stopping her, but it came out more like a groan. "Toph—"

"He never did anything!" she exclaimed, rounding on Azula. "We don't know what you want, so why are you doing this?"

Sokka ignored the sound Getsuei made in his ear (it was either a surly scoff or a weird sort of sneeze, but either way it was highly disconcerting) in order to pay better attention to the duo in front of him. The pair seemed frozen in place, Toph still with her hands over her ears and Azula with one eyebrow raised almost comically, until the latter reached behind her.

"_I_ don't have to do anything," said the princess. With a flourish, she pulled a wooden-carved knife from her belt. One of her clawlike hands closed around Toph's wrist from behind, the other pressing the knife's handle in the Earthbender's open hand and holding it there. "_You_ can do it, if you like. End his misery now instead of prolonging it."

Both Toph and Sokka trembled visibly at her remark, Sokka's weight leaning against the ropes that bound him. His frown deepened. Toph would kill him much faster and more humanely than Azula, but he'd rather not find out. If the situation had not been so grave he might have even laughed, half at the idea of Toph killing him and half at how wide her eyes were. Perhaps being in the Hold had begun to take a toll on his sanity.

"Are you out of your mind?" said a decidedly appalled Toph, wrestling against the knife and Azula and losing quite badly.

She grunted as Azula twisted her other arm up behind her back, pulling the pale red tunic taut around her skinny shoulders. On one side the slightly-ripped fabric slid down, exposing her pale shoulder joint; Azula did not hesitate to force the knife upon the small patch of skin, hard enough to cause worry without actually cutting.

"Am I?" questioned Azula. "Because I believe it's your hand on the knife, even if I'm directing where it goes. And even though you would blame me for cutting your own throat—" the polished blade casually flicked once horizontally across Toph's shoulder, and the Blind Bandit gasped. "I have the distinct feeling that you would feel responsible if I forced you to cut _his_."

"Don't listen to her, Toph!" Sokka chimed in as he struggled to stand properly. "Don't—ah!"

This time it was Azula who lashed out at him, but with fire that Getsuei could not produce. And he, who could not raise his arms over his face in order to protect himself, turned his head and braced against the carelessly hurled plume of blue flame. Still, an unsuppressed cry escaped from him at the feel of his right arm and upper torso just about sizzling with the heat of her fire.

And the smell. Some of the stray strands of his hair on the side of his head had been singed, leaving behind a most terrible odor. Not strong, but violating. He was useless for his own protection.

Sokka was not completely aware that his breaths were coming in very sharp, very loud gasps between coughs, but Toph could hear him. Her eyes closed tight against the sound. Azula rounded on her again, one hand clenching the knife in Toph's hand.

"Just listen to him," she muttered in one of Toph's ears before stepping to the other side and adding, a smirk evident upon her young face, "Can you hear him dying in front of you? Can you feel his pain?"

Now she urged Toph forward with a shove from behind. The Blind Bandit tripped over her own feet, the blocks of wood tied to them clacking loudly on the floor. Azula freed the arm twisted behind Toph's back, grabbed it again, and thrust it towards the spent warrior.

Sokka felt Toph's cold palm on his chest, her splayed fingers curling ever so slightly inward against his skin. He saw faint lines of tears on her face, felt her trembling. The combined burden of Aang and Katara and Zuko and all the others weighed heavy on their shoulders, visibly in Toph's drooping posture. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. But it was, and he could do nothing but hope that they kept their mouths shut long enough to be put to death.

His name fell dumbly from her lips, uttered in what he knew was terror and sorrow and all the things that he, too, felt. Her face was pale, the cut on her shoulder bleeding rivulets into her faded tunic.

"Do you feel his heartbeat?" Azula whispered almost sadly in Toph's ear, though her fiery eyes connected with Sokka's cold ones and a wicked grin spread across her face. "Can you feel the pain he's in? Here's a bargain for you: answer my questions and neither of you will have to face any sort of anguish again. You will be freed from this place… but first you need to talk to me."

"It's really not so bad, T-Toph," Sokka stammered in what was meant to be a comforting tone, all the while glaring right back at Azula. He didn't know exactly when it had begun, but as he stood there in that room with teardrops seeping from his eyes and running down his neck, resignation had settled in his chest. "Don't listen to her. I'm fine—she's just trying to trick you."

"Am I? Your face says otherwise."

Azula pulled Toph's hand upward until the latter's fingers brushed against Sokka's jaw line, tracing the places where his tears had trailed, then let it go. Toph took over and ran her hand along the side of his face with a terrified fascination. Sokka shivered at the kindness of her touch—such a stark contrast to anything he had felt in this room, but all the same he didn't want her to become emotional on his behalf. Thus far he had not doubted her silence, and he didn't the feel of bloody cuts to change her mind. He surveyed her, blinking furiously to clear his eyes, took a deep breath, and craned his neck away from her touch.

"Toph—" His voice cracked. Toph's mouth twitched. Her hand fell to her side. "None of this matters. I know all of this is hard for you—it's killing me, too. But you _can't_ listen to anything she says."

"I'm _trying_," said Toph, this time with an edge that reminded him very much of his old life, of the pre-Hold Toph that would have punched him for doubting her willpower. His lip trembled, almost turning to a defeated smile.

_We're still in there somewhere, aren't we?_

Azula rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, presumably at Toph and Sokka's interaction, but Sokka had a nagging feeling that it was because they were acting as if she could not hear them.

"If neither of you are going to speak on your own, then you leave me no choice. It's a shame that you couldn't have spoken without force. I'm far too busy to be taking care of these things." The look of mild surprise on Toph's face relayed the message that Azula's grip tightened her hand and on the knife. "Oh well. His blood will be on your hands—"

"No!"

Several things happened at once, only one of which Sokka actually saw due to his eyes slamming shut of their own accord. Azula, her hand guiding Toph's with it, thrust the knife without warning towards his midsection. He had braced himself in that split second for what he knew was his last breath and an intense pain, but neither came.

A few seconds passed. The sweat beaded on the side of his face and slid down the side of his temple. Sokka felt no different. Maybe the shock of it overrode the pressure and sting…

It was Toph who had cried out against the movement, and her shout continued to echo in his racing mind. Finally, when he opened his eyes, he almost closed them again at the startling sight before him. Both Toph and Azula stood rigid, their faces twisted with effort and Azula's eyes focused on the blade in their hands. Sokka nearly fainted when he looked down—although he would have blamed it on the effects of starvation and torture, if asked—and saw the knife's polished tip, shaking from their equal efforts, a mere inch from his inwardly-curved stomach. Quickly, thanking Yue for Toph's remaining strength and impeccable reflexes, put as much distance between the knife and his body until his feet were stopped when Getsuei—and wow, he had forgotten that she was even there in the past minutes, the woman was so quiet—prodded him sharply in the back with the end of her whip. He winced and stopped, noting that there would probably be a circle-shaped bruise on his back later on.

Still, he pushed aside his thoughts and focused on what was going on in front of him. His eyes darted from one female face to the other as they continued to fight over the direction of the knife. Neither seemed able to obtain the upper hand on the other, and thus the knife jerked only an inch back and forth with Toph and Azula's small bouts of energy.

Sokka was more than impressed with Toph's performance in the match. Sure, she'd been practically starved in the last few days and her emotional state was less than stable, but by adrenaline or some other source of strength—of what, Sokka only had the vaguest of ideas, and he was not in the best situation to be pondering them—Toph was somehow managing to hold up against the Fire Nation princess's power. Then, in a move that surprised everyone in the room, Toph gave a grunt of effort and, bending her elbows in and then forcing her body sideways, knocked Azula completely off her feet. Sokka's jaw dropped. The knife flew from their hands and skittered across the floor, where it bumped into Azula's boot.

"Where did _that_ come from?" Sokka said, gaping.

Toph seemed surprised with herself, but even more so with him. "What, did you think I'd just let her stab you?" she scoffed, eyebrows aloft.

"No, I meant the sudden burst of—_Toph, look out!_"

A flash of red caught the corner of Sokka's eye as Azula leapt to her feet, snatching up her the knife as she darted forward. Blindly, Toph threw her arms up as a shield, and the blow that had been aimed at her face hit her instead in the arm.

Sokka saw the ordeal as if it had happened in slow motion. The swing of the knife struck her forearm halfway down with a force that knocked her backwards with a cry of pain. Blood streamed in a downward arc, spattering across Toph as well as Azula, the princess's hand following through with her strike to end in perfect form. The Blind Bandit toppled backwards until she landed flat on her back with a resounding _thud_. Her face was flecked with red, her pale eyes wide as she struggled to maintain her fading composure. Sokka yelled aloud and struggled against his bonds, ignoring the rope's twisted burn on his raw wrists and the protests of his injuries.

Next into the scene stepped Getsuei, whose whip dangled lamely from one hand. She strode to Toph's side and grabbed the girl by the collar, then yanked her roughly to her feet. Already Azula had straightened up and brushed the dust from her tunic in a dignified manner. Sokka watched her, hated her and everything she represented. This one person had taken so much away from him—his hope, his sarcasm, even his life—and now she was going to make him watch Toph go through what he had endured. Part of him didn't think he could watch. Part of him wanted to close his eyes and block out all sound and just hang there by his arms, but ignorance was no longer an option.

Azula took her time in approaching a gasping Toph, whose neck had been freed only moments before when Getsuei released her collar to rebind her hands. Red splashed onto the apprentice's hands with every twitch of the rope she tied, but she either didn't notice or didn't care. A much more intriguing Azula jabbed Toph in the abdomen with the dull side of her blade, just to get her point across.

"Does it feel awful?" asked Azula, scornfully. "I'm curious to know the emotions of someone who cannot possibly get any lower. I wouldn't know—I've never been so defeated."

Toph gave a cross between a rasping cough and a mad laugh. "Yes you have. We've been here for a month, and you still don't know anything. You're just wasting your time—" She inhaled sharply as the tip of the knife poked through her clothes at the waistline. Azula's smile was long gone.

"How brave of you, to give your life for the war. Your friends would be proud, wouldn't they?"

Toph didn't respond. She didn't need to. Sokka could feel the energy radiating from every person. They all knew that Azula was right, even if her tone had been a mocking one. Perhaps it was for this reason that Azula drew the knife away from Toph's abdomen and instead rested it at the base of her throat. When she spoke, her voice was in a hiss so low that Sokka had to strain his ears to hear the words.

She teased the tip of the knife up along the side of Toph's neck just hard enough to draw blood. "Isn't it funny, how this works? One well-placed line and you would be gone."

"I might be more useful that way," Toph said.

Her eyebrows shooting up in surprise, Azula hesitated on the knife. The expression was a fleeting one, though—so much that Sokka almost didn't catch it—and a second later the princess had straightened up yet again. Her posture remained elegantly professional, her topknot hardly lopsided even after her fall. But instead of lashing out, Azula sidestepped the Blind Bandit and headed for the door.

"It seems that the only use I will get from you is amusement, at your execution first thing tomorrow morning. How silly of you, to think that you could defeat the Fire Nation." She didn't look back, only lifted one arm in a summoning gesture as she approached the exit and pulled open the door. "Say goodnight, Getsuei."

Sokka winced when Getsuei's whip made sharp contact with Toph's back, and again when the piercing, pained cry reached his ears. Getsuei struck one last time, and the force of it sent Toph to her knees. Toph teetered in place before flopping over. Footsteps clunked down upon the wood. The door slammed.

Then somehow, save for the gasping sounds emitting from the frail girl's mouth as she kneeled with her head on the floor, all was quiet. With the interrogator and her apprentice had vanished the light, but for once Sokka didn't mind the dimness. In the dark of this place, he and Toph were one and the same, both blind and battered and condemned.

He wanted to say it. His throat ached from keeping back—to ask Toph if it could possibly be, but he remained silent. In due time, he would no longer need to speak. This brute force all around them, this desperation that had welled up inside him, said enough on its own.

_I am going to die._

xXx

The red glow of torchlight flickered over the adjacent, sleeping forms curled on the wooden floor of the interrogation room. The girl's arm had been bandaged with a strip of cloth, poorly and hastily so, but tight enough to stem the flow of blood. Her eyes were closed in deep slumber, her shabbily-clothed chest rising and falling against the boy's bare one. His face, however, did not hold the same expressionless as hers; his brows were furrowed, a slight frown tugging down his lips. A moment later, his eyes opened warily at the dim light that had spilled into the room mere seconds before. The softest of groans emitted from his mouth and he, turning his head in the direction of the light, eyed the helmeted guard with hazy suspicion.

"Already…?" The statement had been barely audible to Sokka, though it was he who had said it. "You think they'd give us one last nap."

Nevertheless, he directed his half-lidded gaze towards the top of Toph's head, which was all he could see of her at the moment. His hand moved from its place on the floor to give Toph's shoulder a slight shake. She whimpered.

"Already?" she muttered, and he could feel her voice reverberate against his chest. Sokka almost smiled.

"That's what I said. Come on—" he pulled away from her, took his time in standing, and then helped her to her feet as well. "Let's go."

They would be as dignified as possible, Sokka had explained to Toph after she had untied him from between the podiums. After a month of silence, what was another day?

Sokka watched the guard while Toph clambered to her feet. It had always been a curious thing, how the typical Fire Nation guard uniform turned all who wore it into the same person. This guard, though, wore an armored suit carved completely from wood, and held together with strips of sturdy cloth. He had seen uniforms like this in the first days, but none so elaborate as this. Even in the dim light, he could see that the chest plate had been emblazoned with the Fire Nation insignia, as if to make it more official for the forthcoming festivities. The thought made him just a little bit sicker. He and Toph had discussed a possible last-ditch escape attempt. By the looks of this armor, though, they were going to nowhere but the end.

Regardless of the uniform, the guard was just another clone of the same characters that had guarded his cell—the same characters who had stood at the door of his interrogations and watched him face unspeakably horrible things.

It was only when Toph sighed beside him that Sokka looked to his friend, though his head remained poised in the direction of the guard. His eyebrows relaxed at the sight of her beside him, just as ready to die as he was—meaning not at all, but he tried not to think of that. She was just as starved, just as bloody and afraid as he.

"Where's Azula?" Sokka asked.

"Waiting," came the response in a particularly low, raspy tone.

The guard locked the door and then stepped forward to tie their hands. When Sokka began to struggle, thinking that he might be able to snatch the key and run for it, the guard cuffed him on the side of the head so hard that he stumbled and fell. Quickly the guard finished binding Sokka's wrists behind his back, then did the same to Toph. Once he (or she, Sokka supposed; it was hard to tell with the helmet) had double-knotted the wooden sandals on Toph's feet, the guard slipped a loop of rope around her neck and pulled it taut like a lasso. The guard then fixed the rope through a loop in the armor's shoulder, shortening the length so that Toph could not bend without choking herself.

Sokka was almost surprised when Toph made no comment. Her face remained stony, her lips pursing only when the guard choked up on the rope some more.

"Follow me," said the guard.

The pair moved forward as one, the guard's grip firm on both of them. Toph, now without Sokka as her guide, could only trip along beside the guard. Every step was like a year of his life, and with each a memory flickered across the forefront of his mind. Katara, then Aang, then his father—everyone was there with him, everyone was watching him with love even though they were so far away. By the time they reached the door, his entire life had passed over his eyes.

They walked. For the longest time, it seemed, they walked through those labyrinthine hallways that Sokka had for so long been a part of. They were vacant now. Perhaps the others were guarding new prisoners, or preparing for the ritual. He cast wary looks around him as they went, taking notice especially when they stepped through a door at the end of a main hallway and were no longer in the prison itself. These new halls were just as solid, just as dark as the others, but instead of cells lining the walls, Sokka saw giant door-like structures, each with a number.

Vaults.

Why were they at the vaults?

"Don't move," commanded the deep-voiced guard. It moved forward, leaving Sokka to silently observe, then opened a vault labeled as number three and disappeared inside it with Toph.

He could run, Sokka supposed. Maybe somehow wrestle Toph out of the guard's grip, lock the guard in the vault, and try to find an escape, but he didn't move. Neither he nor Toph had the ability to fight in this state, and now Sokka had no idea at all where they even were, much less how to find the exit. He was hoping for a swift execution with as little pain beforehand as possible, and running off would only give them incentive to hurt he and Toph even more. As it stood, they could barely move forward.

After a few painstaking moments, the guard and Toph reemerged with a large, full bag. Sokka continued to eye it as the guard ushered them forward again down the hallway. Tools for their date, he assumed. How wonderful.

Even in this situation, he could not help but speak, if only to break the silence.

"Is there food in that bag?" he asked pointedly. "I thought we were supposed to get a last meal or something before we're hanged."

Toph quickly added, though there was no humor in her voice, "Food would be nice. I'd love a sandwi—"

"Shut up," snapped the guard, yanking the rope to cut Toph's sentence short. "And for informational purposes, the preferred method of execution is beheading; less assembly is required."

Subconsciously, Sokka rubbed the front of his neck and grimaced.

Finally, the guard stopped outside another door—larger than the others, and thicker as well, by the looks of it—and cast a look around before unlocking it and pushing it open.

_This is it_, Sokka thought as he was shoved roughly through the doorway. He looked up, expecting to see Azula waiting patiently for them, surrounded by more wood-clad guards. _This is—wait_.

It wasn't large enough to be an execution room, he mused. Actually, it was hardly a room at all. The almost closet-sized space that they had stepped into was large enough to hold a very small number of people comfortably. Save for a ladder on the far wall and a few torches, the rectangular area was completely empty.

A click resounded from behind. Sokka spun around. The guard, whose back was to them, locked the door and dropped the rope. Instantly, Toph pulled the loop off, backed to where Sokka was standing, and slammed her tied hands against the wall. There was a metallic _clang!_, then a tearing sound as Toph yanked a fistful of metal from the wall and Bended it into a ball in front of her. Sokka could see the effort she took to keep the ball aloft. She looked about ready to crumple.

"Wait," said the guard, who seemed oddly calm despite facing the prospect of a mouthful of metal.

Toph widened her stance, poised to strike. She had always been daunting in all her prowess, but seeing her now, Sokka thought her nothing short of frightening. Her long hair hung, disheveled, down her back and around her face, her Earthbending pose strong but oddly staggered. Having her wrists tied only contributed to the image, like she was a cornered animal.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't, and we'll see how long I wait," she snarled.

"Fine." Dropping the sack of whatever was in the vault, the pair's escort raised its hands to its head and lifted the helmet away.

"You!" Sokka recoiled in horror, pulling a very perplexed Toph along with him. The chunk of metal fell to the ground as she stumbled backward.

Getsuei's cold eyes stared back at him, her face expressionless in the torchlight. Stooping down, she set her helmet down on the floor in order to take up the satchel. Toph seemed to consider striking her while she was not looking, but the next moment Getsuei had straightened up again.

"So you're executioner too now, huh?" Sokka snapped. One of his arms wound around Toph's shoulders, pulling her closer as if Getsuei were trying to separate them.

"Hardly," intoned the apprentice, frowning. "I know you have good reason not to believe me, but I'm trying to help."

Toph gave a hollow, disbelieving laugh.

"I did," Getsuei insisted, though her voice relayed little conviction. "I tried to leave you tools with which to escape. The rod in the bathroom, namely. I even made sure you heard the directions to your friend's cell.

"That's ridiculous. You helped to torture us!" Toph said.

"I don't deny it, and nor am I proud of what I've done," replied Getsuei, simply. "Azula is uncommonly perceptive. I couldn't help you directly, lest she find out."

"Wait, wait."

Sokka's mind was reeling with this new news. It just didn't make sense. It couldn't be true, not all this time…

"B-but you said…" he trailed off. "I thought your father was killed by the Water Tribe! You said you wanted revenge on—"

"On the nation responsible." Getsuei nodded. "True enough, your father did kill my father in battle, but I am from the Earth Kingdom. My father was captured along with several other men from our village. They dressed them in Fire Nation armor and sent out onto the front lines, completely unarmed." She paused in her tale, green eyes flickering. "I came here, determined to change the fates of those also affected by the Fire Lord's tyranny. How surprised I was when you, the son of the chief, were assigned as my tool for practice!"

During her speech, Sokka had closed his eyes tightly shut, his hands over his eyes as if to keep his head from spinning. There was so much going on at that moment, so much that he had thought to be reality was suddenly wrong. The stories matched up, yes, but there were things that he couldn't accept. And yet…

"You helped me up," he stated in a flat tone, lowering his hands and fixing Getsuei with an astonished stare. "When Azula shoved me down after she stuck my head in that tank, you helped me up and wiped my face."

Getsuei nodded gravely. "I hurt you as little as possible, preferring non-contact interrogation methods over ones that would physically injure you."

"But you still injured us!" Toph said. "Look at Sokka! I don't need to be able to see to feel the marks all over him. You nearly killed him!"

"She has a point. There are a thousand other things you could have done, but you picked this job!" Sokka said. "That's just a _little_ fishy."

Ignoring the last comments, Getsuei stepped forward with the bag extended out towards Sokka. "Take this." Sokka reached out to do so, but hesitated. She explained, "Inside are all the possessions you had when you were captured, as well as a week's worth of money and some food. Behind you is a ladder, and above it is the least-guarded exit to the Hold. You may escape that way and go deep enough into the woods so that you will not be pursued."

"How do we know that there isn't an ambush waiting to kill us at the top?" Sokka said. "This could all be a trick."

"Have you anything to lose?"

Sokka hesitated again, very aware that his heart was pounding in his chest so hard that Toph, even with those blocks of wood tied to her feet, must be able to feel it. From now on, he would have to ask himself that very question every time he had to press on in the war. Azula had orchestrated her plan almost flawlessly, and letting them go could just as easily fall into that plan. If he ever saw her again—and hopefully, if he was lucky, he would be strong and ready to face her—he would have to wonder if it was just another piece of her scheme. A roundabout move in their game of pai sho.

Slowly, Sokka extended his arm and took the heavy bag into his hands. At the gesture, Getsuei unsheathed a knife from her belt and—Sokka almost flinched—cut his wrist bindings, then Toph's.

Rubbing his raw wrists, Sokka ventured into another matter."Do you know if the men from the invasion—the ones what were captured… are they…?"

Getsuei shook her head. "I don't know. Contrary to what Azula told you, the Fire Nation does take war prisoners. And the last I heard they were alive, but I don't know the state of your warriors."

Another thoughtful silence, then, "I put you through all of this in hopes that you will be stronger now more than ever."

Staring, Sokka couldn't help but blurt out the first thing that came to his mind: "You're insane!"

The apprentice smiled at him. The effect of the light on her grim face was quite frightening. "A little, perhaps."

Before the conversation could get any more awkward, Sokka took the sack of belongings and turned to face the ladder, pulling Toph along with him. So many thoughts were passing through his mind that he could not even bring himself to thank the apprentice. Even if he had been able to think properly, he might not have. There was too much affliction in that part of his brain, of his heart. The best thing to do was get through that door in the ceiling before something changed.

Sokka went first, the bag swaying in one hand as he ascended the metal rungs, straining with the effort of hoisting himself up. Right behind him was Toph, her knuckles white from her grip. Once he reached the top and fumbled with the many locks on the door—his fingers were shaking so badly that he could hardly hold on to the ladder and manipulate the door at the same time—he pressed against the base of the metal and pushed it upward with a small grunt.

Light. True, real light and the air of the outside world almost blinded him at first. Now Sokka was sure that he would pass out once the adrenaline left his system, but that didn't matter as long as he and Toph could get out of here first. Shoving aside all thoughts of danger aside, he heaved himself up and out of the Fire Nation Hold for the first time.

He could barely speak. The reality was too much.

"Is there anyone up there?" Toph asked from where she still gripped the ladder.

Shaking his head even though she couldn't see it, Sokka dropped to his knees and helped Toph climb out of the door. The blocks on her feet clunked with every movement of her foot against the metal ladder. Then, once she was safely outside, he stuck his head back down into the room. Getsuei stared back at him, her eyes narrowed against the flood of daylight and her normal scowl back.

What could he say to her, after everything?

"Well…" he began slowly. "Goodbye, I guess."

"Good luck, Sokka."

Sokka, still unsure of what exactly he was feeling or of what was going on, closed the trap door. Once sealed, it blended in perfectly with the surrounding ground save for a small metal handle. It was almost funny. All that he had experienced was right below his hands, and yet it already seemed more like a distant nightmare.

Beside him, Toph gave a sort of tearless sob and stood up. Sokka followed suit, at the same time grabbing the handle of the satchel and dragging it up with him.

All around in every direction, trees circled them. The grass—greener, he was sure, than any green he had ever seen—was soft under his sore feet. He could hardly tear his eyes from the peaceful stillness all around him. How could this be real? Perhaps he was dreaming?

But no. Even in this strange state of being—this feeling that he, appearing as he did, did not belong in this scene—the feeling of Toph's arm brushing his was very, very real. He looked doubtfully down at their battered bodies, his burned arm adjacent to her bandaged one.

"Sokka…" she breathed. Apparently she felt the same as he: so lost and so surreal in what seemed to them to be a new world. "What… what do we do?"

He shook his head slightly, eyes still fixated on what was all around him. "I… Toph. _Toph_."

For what felt like the first time but what he knew would not be the last, Sokka took Toph's hand in his.

For the longest time, their time in the Hold would set them apart from their friends. Neither of them would be able to speak of the twisted events that had occurred within these walls to anyone, save for one another, for many months. While Katara and Aang would struggle to help and understand, they would not be able comfort Toph and Sokka when dreams were pierced by wooden blades and cold cells and bleeding guards. Even in just a day's time, when Sokka travelled into town for the first time since the ordeal, he would feel isolated from the people, would feel their stares on his emaciated frame even when a fresh tunic covered the welts on his torso.

"What is it, Sokka?"

But in the end, it would bring them closer together. Sokka was sure of it. As he stood there, the feeling of Toph's hand securely in his own and the world at his feet, he felt that he was changing at that very moment. Even the brute force of interrogation and near starvation could not take away which had been inside him all along. The desperation was already fading, fading away to be replaced by the smallest glimmer of hope.

It was a good start. Sokka glanced down at Toph once more and smiled softly, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze before he turned his face up to the sky.

"We're free."

xXx

_Fin._


End file.
